He Cheated, Yet He’s ‘Pathologically Nice’
Yes, he cheated on her, but he’s still a pathologically nice person. Conflict avoidant maybe. He didn’t intend to hurt her. Does it matter?
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Hi Chump Lady,
I was hoping to get your thoughts on something that has pervaded my marriage, discovery of his infidelity and now divorce proceedings.
That is the concept of abuse without malice.
My husband and I have been together 16 years, married for 11. It took me until the past year to really grapple with the reality that my marriage was financially and emotionally abusive, that he lies, and that he cheats on me.
I only know about the most recent one, but I strongly suspect he is still hiding from me past lies and affairs and will lie until the day he dies. The revelation of him sleeping with a mutual friend and lying to me about it, convincingly and repeatedly, is what cleared my vision so I could see my life clearly.
I could no longer explain away the pain in my marriage as “the work” of marriage, or believe any more that we were two fundamentally well meaning, ethical people working through disagreements. The lies just set on fire the last shred of faith I had.
My marriage was not good for me, and I had to get out.
I’m on the path now, physically separated with my own space, learning to thrive as a single mom, working through financial separation, postnup signed, speaking regularly with my attorneys, on the path, looking forward to meh.
Here’s what I mean by “without malice.” He’s not an obvious asshat. He never raised his voice at me. He never hit me or called me terrible names. And he didn’t financially abuse me in a way that was obvious to me or other people. It was all covert, and it was all with a spoonful of honey.
His weapons of choice are charm, optimism, denial and magical thinking.
He’s almost pathologically “nice.” He’s exceedingly conflict avoidant. Intelligent, handsome, loved by his friends, generous, appears emotionally stable, appears successful, fit, charming… and selfish as hell. I don’t believe that he enjoys hurting me, meaning no malice. But he hurts me nonetheless, and I’ve learned to separate intent from impact.
When I started reading your blog, I was terrified he would drop the mask and become a different person, abandon our son, empty our accounts, refuse to sign a postnup, start hitting me or God only knows what else. And I don’t at all regret taking actions to protect myself in case he did. I know that for me to be relieved none of this happened just shows the bar is in hell.
And noted that we’re not divorced yet, so knock on wood, maybe this is all coming. But let’s say it’s not. Let’s say he proceeds to be reasonable about divorce negotiations, but annoyingly good at delay and distraction tactics. Maybe he actually will give me a fair divorce, he just repeatedly violates my boundaries in the process and continues trying to kiss me after I’ve told him to stop. Let’s say he professes his undying love to me and that he’s a changed man until the day we divorce, all while lining up his Warm Body Replacements (a term I heard for rebound girlfriends).
Bottom line, I’m clear that this relationship is not acceptable to me, and I’m leaving.
But I feel like this brand of awful marriage is super confusing to be inside of and difficult to talk about.
I want to open the conversation for other chumps who find themselves with a shitty marriage, always served with a spoonful of honey. Where you are perpetually harmed, but it seems like a regrettable consequence not like his actual goal. Like he doesn’t enjoy hurting you, he’s just too messed up to stop, and maybe really wishes he could.
Is this actually the norm and I’m just confused? Or do some cheaters suck overtly and others covertly?
Thanks for your insight,
ChumpedWithHoney
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Dear ChumpedWithHoney,
I’m guessing you read a lot of Reconciliation Industrial Complex articles before you landed here. You’re describing the mindf*ck of The Timid Forest Creature. He didn’t mean to hurt you! He’s just conflict avoidant! Oh, he’s not a bad person, he just did some bad things!
Remove your head from the helicopter blade.
He’s not ‘nice,’ he’s practiced at impression management.
Also, trying to figure out what manner of cheater he is, is pointless. You made the important decision — this relationship is NOT acceptable to you. Further analysis is untangling the skein. We all do this. It’s a coping mechanism after you’ve invested years of your life in a fraud, but the important takeaway is — he’s a fraud.
There is no abuse without malice. That’s your bargaining stage of grief talking. You’re resisting the idea that your husband could behave so callously and deceptively. Which leads to the conclusion (and giant wall of pain) that he didn’t love you. That his investment didn’t match your investment. You were chumped.
I only know about the most recent one, but I strongly suspect he is still hiding from me past lies and affairs and will lie until the day he dies. The revelation of him sleeping with a mutual friend and lying to me about it, convincingly and repeatedly, is what cleared my vision so I could see my life clearly.
He slept with a mutual friend. HE KNEW THIS WOULD DEVASTATE YOU. And he PROCEEDED. He weighed your emotional well-being and physical health against his grubby ego validation, and his dick won. And then after discovery, he weighed your sanity against his discomfort at being exposed, and he valued himself above you again. He persisted in doubling down on his lies.
He doesn’t hate you — he doesn’t even consider you.
And isn’t indifference supposed to be worse than hatred? Frankly, I’m not convinced that cheaters don’t hate the people they’re cheating on. But it’s an impersonal kind of hate. They’re the superior beings, you’re the inferior race. Why answer your questions? It’s not as if you matter.
Here’s what I mean by “without malice.” He’s not an obvious asshat.
Abusers don’t lead with abuse. They have hooks. Very few people are dumb enough to waltz off with a brute. Of course he’s charming.
He never raised his voice at me. He never hit me or called me terrible names.
No, he just concealed his selfish agenda and stole years of your life. He faked an investment in you that he did not reciprocate. A punch in the face is at least an honest transaction. You know who and what hit you.
And he didn’t financially abuse me in a way that was obvious to me or other people. It was all covert, and it was all with a spoonful of honey.
Double lives cost money and I hope you ask for theft of marital assets back in the divorce. (You are divorcing, RIGHT? Is the postnup some lure to have him think reconciliation is possible?)
Tell me what kind of honey you’re receiving when the consequences become clear to him.
Reframe his ‘charm.’
His weapons of choice are charm, optimism, denial and magical thinking.
His weapons of choice are deception, future faking, gaslighting, and lack of accountability. There, I fixed it for you.
He’s almost pathologically “nice.” He’s exceedingly conflict avoidant. Intelligent, handsome, loved by his friends, generous, appears emotionally stable, appears successful, fit, charming… and selfish as hell.
It’s not nice to screw mutual friends while married to you. I have to actually type that sentence. His behavior is NOT NICE. Ergo, he is NOT NICE. Unless you want to judge him on some other criteria, like how handsome he looks in golf trousers. Other people fall for it, because who he projects himself to be is inoffensive. He’s a very nice hologram.
Don’t expect a nice divorce.
If you get one, great. Leave this to the lawyers and don’t back down from what you’re entitled to. I’m skeptical that people this selfish are going to lead with generosity and fairness. The sooner you strike, the better, IMO. Let him follow the Schmoopie sparkles. Get out before it implodes.
And noted that we’re not divorced yet, so knock on wood, maybe this is all coming. But let’s say it’s not. Let’s say he proceeds to be reasonable about divorce negotiations, but annoyingly good at delay and distraction tactics.
Pay attention to his behavior.
Saying “nice” things, like he agrees to the divorce terms, and then drags his feet and won’t sign shows he doesn’t mean a damn thing he says.
Maybe he actually will give me a fair divorce, he just repeatedly violates my boundaries in the process and continues trying to kiss me after I’ve told him to stop.
He’s hoovering. Testing your boundaries. That behavior says he doesn’t believe you’re going to make good on your threat. So he’s trying the old manipulation channel that’s always worked for him: charm. He could well flip to rage and self-pity next.
Let’s say he professes his undying love to me and that he’s a changed man until the day we divorce, all while lining up his Warm Body Replacements (a term I heard for rebound girlfriends).
It doesn’t matter what he professes or what he does. What matters is that this relationship is unacceptable to you.
I want to open the conversation for other chumps who find themselves with a shitty marriage, always served with a spoonful of honey. Where you are perpetually harmed, but it seems like a regrettable consequence not like his actual goal. Like he doesn’t enjoy hurting you, he’s just too messed up to stop, and maybe really wishes he could.
He’s not Godzilla, mindlessly trampling Tokyo. He’s sentient being who understands what he’s doing, okay? Of course he regrets the consequences — they’re consequences!
Deliver them.
****
CN, any of you suffer from a similar confusion?
New post. Just a reminder about invective and my Google overlords. Please use euphemisms or abbreviations. Thanks.
Oh my gosh, this describes my ex so well. “Doesn’t even consider you” is so perfectly accurate. The indifference was so painful, only to have them weave in and out with emotional support, or asking me for support (which I always give because I struggle with boundaries).
The lies about the affairs, the blame shifting – it’s all to protect their ego. They can’t stand to be the bad guy or have their image ruined. But they don’t use private anger to manage it; they use tact and niceness (not kindness) to manage it.
I’ll never say one is worse than the other, because I hate abuse comparison, but I will say I was and am deeply hurt from all this, even as I try to focus on healing and living life and being a healthy co-parent for my children.
Old Indian Saying “Watch the feet, not the tongue”, of course cheaters are charming, it works, the mere fact that he tries to kiss you is an outright act of cruelty, he doesn’t mean it, its just to see if he still has the magic. He is more dangerous than you know, just wait until you cross him, the other side will come out, right now he doesn’t know what’s coming “hit him with your best shot, fire away” you will see what you are dealing with fairly quickly. It won’t be pretty.
That’s exactly right. If he ever feels like he’s been wronged by her, she’ll see who he really is.
You may always have value as an appliance and the niceness may never leave…
Agreed about the kiss- that made me want to set my hair on fire. My ex would try to hug me and looking back took photos of me, saying “smile” and I would say no, and he was so cajoling and – I would say, but I’m sad, and then he would get me to smile and take a photo. Looking back, to show to everyone that I “am look ” with it all, and at that point ,and I suspect in this case, you have no idea how bad it is yet.. just NO. He is not nice at all. Image management is the WORST. The public shame of walking around with a black eye (we blame victims) isn’t as bad to me – I’ve had both- as the brain washing that “he’s a good guy”. This guy isn’t even there. And my shrink said, when I was still looking for accountability and I still struggle with it in my head, although I am no contact for a long time, “he will lie on his deathbed”. And yours will too. Godspeed you can go gray rock or better no contact. Tracy mentioned the post nup and I don’t know what is going on with that either, but get angry and get all you can get and get out.This guy is a monster.
I recall Tracy has said to get a postnup IF YOU INTEND TO STAY ..as a means of protecting your assets and giving more chances. Then pulling out the post nup for the divorce proceedings if you plan to file. I am wondering if honey Chump is dragging her feet, staying and weighing the pros & cons with her letter to CL. Just my feeling here.
It’s possible that by “post-nup” the LW meant the Marital Settlement Agreement. Needs clarification.
“I am Ok”
The concept I struggled with the most as a newly chumped individual was the whole “cheaters are abusive” thing. My FW was kind, nice, liberal, socially aware, and a pillar of the community. Surely I must have done something to deserve this. Maybe the cheating was just a mistake.
I was unable to see who this person really was until after I left, when FW subjected me to an extremely destructive campaign of slander and post separation abuse. I started reading about abusive relationships and began to realize that the relationship had always been abusive, and even violent and scary at times. I hadn’t seen the pattern because FW’s overwhelming “nice” periods had kept me from connecting the dots.
Not everyone will have this experience after leaving. But the best book I can recommend about abusive relationships is Don Hennessey’s “How He Gets Into Her Head.” The book barely mentions battering, if at all. It talks almost exclusively about how abusers spend months and years to “befriend the victim’s mind.”
He says that the most skilled abusers never do the most egregious things, because they don’t have to. It’s actually easier for them to maintain control by “playing nice” (while actually exploiting you). And the whole time, you’re accepting their version of events and telling their side of the story, because there’s no room for your perspective in the relationship.
Just something to think about as you gain some distance and start to piece together your own experience of what happened.
Just wanted to come back to say thanks. I’m reading it now and it is very helpful. The assessment about mind control is also helpful and, while disturbing, made me feel less nuts.
Yes! I also found the assessment to be very illuminating, and I was surprised by my score. So glad it was helpful.
Thank you! I will absolutely read it.
I just purchased on kindle the book by Hennessy, “how he gets into her head.”
Excellent read. It explains so much. Very much worth it.
Thank you for suggesting it.
I’m glad it’s helpful. The insight that my FW had likely targeted me for manipulation and deception since day 1 was a painful one, but made a lot of other stuff make sense.
Seems like this resonated with a lot of people. “Traumatic Cognitive Dissonance” by Peter Salerno is a good self help book if you’re struggling with two warring narratives about who your ex was and why the relationship went wrong. “When Reality Breaks” is a much more basic take on the same subject but I found it soothing and sanity-restoring.
Thank you for this! ”… there’s no room for your perspective in the relationship” just knocked something loose for me.
Same here. I still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night wondering if FW is right and I’m the bad person here. But luckily going as NC as possible has helped a lot with that. Sending hugs!
” I still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night wondering if FW is right and I’m the bad person here.”
NC does help as you have seen. I also found an incredible therapist that helped as well. I am doing so much better now, but early on, it was astounding how badly my brain wanted to remain washed. For example, one of my childrem is NC with him. This wasn’t about the cheating, but rather about his personality. He is emotionally and verbally abusive. After we separated, they quickly stopped wanting to see him, but initially they just protested to me but still went to his house on his time, eventually one day they just stopped going. This was in his opinion entirely my fault. I had alienated him etc.
Logically, I knew that this wasn’t my fault. I spoke to my therapist and she helped point out what I actually did vs what he SAID I did.
I didn’t alienate him, in fact for months and months I tried to help. If they complained about him, I would make excuses for his shitty behaviour. I stopped when my therapist pointesd out I was invlidating my kid’s very real feelings and experiences,
I told him to stop being so angry all the time. He did not appreciate my input. (shocking)
I urged kiddo to go. Week after week. And it got harder and harder.
Eventually I was able to understand that his relatioship with his kids is on him. And that the breakdown was not my fault.
But even after I thought I fully grasped it, I would still have days where I would suddenly panic and think “did I do this?” And I would have to stop and think about all the actual evidence and what actuially went down, all because he jsut kept screaming “aliienation!” with zero facts to back it up.
All to say it is just so crazy to see how their baloney can take hold in your head and stay there for a long time.
Yes this was me too. I might buy the book even though I am well out of my marriage, I still find reading info about these people helpful in my daily life.
Oh no, no, no, no no.
Lots of abusers are outwardly nice-seeming. Child sexual predators are often reported to be quite nice. Would anyone allow a snarling, crazed monster with disheveled hair, dirty clothes and a leer on their face access to their child? But Father Steve, so kind to the family, so soft-spoken, so spiritually accessible? Or Uncle Joe, so kindly and benevolent, a trusted family friend for years and who takes such a paternal interest in little Michael?
I hear the sound of every grandma on earth saying “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Yes, you do.
OP, this guys niceness is only a tool to get what he wants. It has no connection to the real emotion of genuine kindness and you need to stop being confused by that. Stop looking for niceness and look instead for integrity. Does he treat you with integrity? Clearly not.
Please stop caring that he is smiling when he stabs you, and deal with the fact of his stabbing you.
I speak from hard-earned experience here. You know what is behind nice? A monster.
Along with the honey/vinegar thing my great grandmother would say “Him? No. He’s too sweet to be wholesome.”
ChumpedwithHoney’s FW isn’t “Pathologically Nice” ….. he’s just very adept at image management. The gap between how he puts himself across and the actual impact of his actions is very stark indeed; ultimately, a knife between the ribs delivered with a smile is still a knife between the ribs.
I’m glad that ChumpedwithHoney is getting out.
LFTT
this post has no drama but thats the challenge with this situation….i spent years thinking no abuse occurred because we didnt fight and he was never physically violent toward me….. I gave the benefit of the doubt for years to someone who never earned it…I read somewhere that covert abuse is the worst kind because it takes much longer to figure out….and really encourages you to doubt yourself even more….the sneakiest theft of reality of all
Oh dear. ChumpedWithHoney, this dude sounds suspiciously like a Covert Narcissist to me. He projects a persona that is all sweetness and light while simultaneously being really awful. When I got divorced people were SHOCKED! that my ex had cheated and that he quit seeing the kids.
My ex’s persona was “Fine, Upstanding Christian Businessman.” That is not who he is or was. He was a liar who lied for the hell of it–after literally telling me that he was not a good liar while we were dating.
We had been married around 20 years when he told me that he had never felt empathy. He just didn’t understand what that was like. It took me 25 years to realize that it made him happy to emotionally destroy me. The constant story of our marriage was that I was never quite good enough. Every time I “failed” he felt that it was his duty to point it out so that I would know why I was a failure and improve. I was such a disappointment to him. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He was trying to help me be a better person. That’s how he treated our children as well.
This kind of abuser is just as likely to unalive you as the one who beats his wifely weekly. You need to get out. Now.
“…he told me that he had never felt empathy”
In her book “The Sociopath Next Door”, Martha Stout says that the most important quality in a person (of any relation to you) to be aware of is lack of empathy. If you pay attention to nothing else, run when you see this.
My cheater ex#2 said he was Amazed he didn’t need to take his anxiety medication at all during the times he was cheating!! First of all, because I deserved it and second of all, he felt nothing to be anxious about. Felt NOTHING
My ex told me at one point that he didn’t think he was capable of love. I took it to be some sort of self-doubt and that he was looking for comfort, but it was a confession.
In the satanic factory of FW manufacture the OP soon be ex probably came off same conveyor belt as my FW narcopath.
Charming, funny, seemingly nice guy and physically not intimidating at all. Yep that’s him. Generous seemingly because he was too busy siphoning money to his double life to care about us and because there was plenty of money to go around. During reconciliation we had expensive trips and he was crying timid forest creature and so convincing telling that I was the love of his life, he was hurting, his FOO stuff, etc. His crying tantrums and fake suicide attempts were avoidable if I just played along, but I kept digging and couple of marriage counselors were taking him to task and he hated being held accountable!
By the time I landed here I had ready Tracy’s book and realized he was considering a fatal accident for me. Also that once lulled into complacency that I was staying, he was stealing and lying again/never stopped. I had private investigators help me in my digging for the truth.
Narcissistic personality disordered cheaters come in different flavors and this covert type is the most excellent at Impression Management I believe in part because they believe their own BS.
Nice timid forest creature facade began to slip as we were divorcing and knowing that guilt wears off in 3-9 months I proceeded quickly and got a decent settlement leveraging it, but because FW already stole a 7 figure sum so he again ‘looked nice’. My beeyotch of a lawyer even said he still loved me and to leverage it.
After the divorce he showed his true colors by neglecting and lying to the kids and being shockingly cheap to us while crying about being alone. I have the receipts as the kids say. Covert narc to the max. He’s practiced this faux Nice Guy persona his whole life he was even playing that to the escorts!
Tracy’s right on in her reply. LISTEN. And hire a private investigator to help you dig. Find your own ‘receipts’. I know the evidence presented by an objective third party hurt like hell but helped me counter FW expert gaslighting. He’s still cos playing Nice Guy everywhere and now I just leverage it for the kids in my near NC way. So there’s that at least.
By the way FW being so nice and contrite was I stayed after DDay #1 with a post nup decades ago. He fooled so many people for so long. Does not work don’t fall for it!
There is one more thing I feel compelled to say to OP. The greater the disconnect between the image and the action, the more dangerous these guys are. They are very, very skilled at deception and have invested enormous energy into that image. You are in a lot more danger than you realize, physically, emotionally, financially and in every way.
Exactly this. “Nice guy” FW narcopath was so upset I told a few people.
Once I realized he was considering a fatal accident for me, I sang like a bird to all and sundry!
Yes. You are the sole witness to their crime that they’ve hidden from the world. The only person who knows they are lying. If they can take you out somehow, there will be no tracks at all.
Scott Peterson, nice guy. Chris Watts: Nice guy, good dad. Until they weren’t.
This is so very true – you are a threat to their image, and therefore their existence, simply because you are proof that they are not a nice person. It took me a while to understand that I was an NPC in his world, and if that is the case you are also very disposable. How that manifests itself could potentially be a larger danger to you than you realize. Once I realized what was happening, my guard was up, he was the enemy…and I did everything I could to protect myself and my child as I untangled myself from the FW. Don’t let them get in your head, don’t let them fool you with the semblance of nice.
This is a sociopath. You’re describing a sociopath. He’s concluded that a veneer of being “nice” and pouring on the charm is a much more effective way to get what he wants than rage and obvious coercion.
Stop focusing on the “spoonful of honey”. He abuses you financially in ways he knows are hard for others to see. He tries to abuse you sexually (kissing you after you said no) and to manipulate you with physical contact.
Do not be fooled by any of this. If he really felt like the charm stopped working to get what he wanted, he’d drop the mask.
This is the label I have for my exFW now. Only a sociopath can hide a double life for three decades and still see himself as a good guy. Only a sociopath can do all the terrible things that he did and still somehow blame me for all of it. My therapist said “I’m not allowed to diagnose someone if I’m not their therapist, but…damn if he doesn’t fit the criteria for a sociopath I’m not sure who does.” That’s good enough for me.
Thank you for using this word — sociopath. That’s the vibe I’m getting from this FW. It’s worse than being a covert narcissist. This person is very, very practiced at sociopathy. I think No Contact is super-important here.
Yes, I agree. My STBX is definitely a covert narcissist, but after I left, I found myself reading books on sociopathy. I could never be sure, but I figure it’s bad enough that I read entire books on the subject. I’m careful never to be alone with him, and don’t trust a thing he says.
agrreed.
A shrink once said to me “I never met a sociopath I didn’t like.”
Scary, but I can definitely see the truth. Charm can be a weapon, and much more disarming than straight up violence.
THIS
Oh wow …scary
Here’s what I mean by “without malice.” He’s not an obvious asshat.
Really? Sleeping with your friend is malicious. Trying to assault you (kissing without permission) is malicious. It all reads “obvious asshat” to me.
(Also — I say this with love — why is he physically close enough to you to try to kiss you? Is this during child drop-off? He doesn’t need to be in your home, and vice versa. Stay in your car and have him bring child outside. Shore up on No Contact, which will help you see that he is indeed an obvious asshat.)
Agreed – mental/emotional AND physical distance are important. Not too long after I had to start doing it, I backed drop offs/pick ups to neutral locations outside of my home.
This! 100% Everybody loves him. He pays me monthly- although I suspect he hid money from me when we went through the marriage industrial complex. Of course he would have said it was for security. Of course it’s his security and optics, but i also think he wants to convince himself that he’s not a bad guy. That he’s a good guy trying to make everyone happy. Naturally, “making everyone else happy” begins with self in his book. This is why I now have a problem with the argument that you must love yourself first in order to love others. No. He loved himself more and therefore served himself first.
I think the “love yourself first” argument is fine if you are the kind of person that can then move on to step two and actually love others. But for some people it’s not “love yourself first” it is “love yourself only”.
“He doesn’t hate you — he doesn’t even consider you.”
This was my ex. If you stand still and look at him, he’s not nice, he’s a shark…maybe with his teeth filed down, but he’s cold and calculating. He figures out how he can continue his double life doing whatever it is he wants to do, whatever fills the hole, and not have to deal with the consequences of his actions. Need to still feel like the nice guy? How about a hug, or a kiss, making you dinner, or one last romantic rendezvous? “Nice” is as surface as it gets – it’s what he does to look like anything but the bad guy that he is. The cognitive dissonance was STRONG with my ex. The sad/scary part is that they fully believe this about themselves. You are a side character, so how can you be of any consequence anyway? But that circus in their heads that they call reality doesn’t matter. You’re a real person, who experienced real abuse. The truth of what they did can be disguised but it cannot be changed. Get away from their orbit now, keep the co-parenting business only, and process the mindf*ck later. I am 9 years out and I still don’t know how people like this exist, but they do and I don’t try to convince myself otherwise when I smell this kind of BS coming. Nice (or rather kind) is an action. These people are not nice – they are cruel BS artists.
Yes! We married “nice guys” instead of “good men.” Cheaty’s layers of “nice” whitewash were so thick that it took me ten years of scraping to get down to his reality. When his “consequences became clear” to him, his behavior changed. Or maybe I should say that when his “nice” began to fail to work on me anymore he showed me exactly who he has been the entire time. Manipulative, vindictive, and viciously angry at anything and anyone who dares challenge his carefully crafted “nice guy” image.
… I’ve been putting off replying, don’t know why, but I married a “good man” Ren…. he’s not the showy, “nice guy”. Solid, reliable, strong work ethic. He was my rock, and as the song goes, the wind beneath my wings. He gently believed in me and encouraged and supported me to follow my dreams. So he’s different to the Planet Narc babies often posted on here. For which I am grateful!!! My shite sandwich was bad enough. But so many of CN got the gourmet shite sandy.
In an old post one person said she believe in her case “a good man fell”.
I think that’s me too… 😔
My exFW was almost exactly what you described. A “nice guy”. But he did the same stupid hurtful stuff your FW is doing. During our separation he would try to kiss me. He would touch me when the children were around and I couldn’t shrug him off without looking like a jerk. He apologized over and over. Promised to be a better man for me. I had heard it all before. But he gave me everything I wanted in the divorce. I thought that maybe, I got off easy.
We’ve now been divorced for two years and he is suing me. Once he learned that I’m not coming back his fangs really came out. So now he’s dragging me into court to take away my alimony and forcing me to sell my house. The man I gave chance after chance to isn’t satisfied with how his life turned out and is blaming me. I have become the villain in his story. And I’ve got the lawyer fees to prove it. Nice guys like our FWs aren’t really nice at all. It’s a mask. The further away from him you get the more you will see that he isn’t nice at all. Go back and read your post again. Look at all the “nice” things he did to you. Read it as if it’s someone else. Trust that he sucks. Because he does.
Thanks for this reality check. I hope it doesn’t go this direction but I guess I have to be ready for it.
Molly your situation sucks I’m sorry, and I’m quite afraid of this, as he has very deep pockets.
I can only hope hope his hooker habit keeps him too busy gorging on kibbles to come after me.
I had a FW much like this too. It’s so confusing! I would recommend reading Lundy Bancroft”s book. “Why Does he Do That?” He describes the different types of abusive men. This book helped me so much to understand what I was going through. One type he describes is “Mr Sensitive”. Described mine to a t. Very kind, people like him, he is so on board with fair treatment of women, yet in private he lies and is selfish as anyone can be.
This is a great book for any female chump to read. It sure helped me a lot. I learned about it from reading CL.
His profile of The Player would also be of interest to Chump Nation.
Absolutely!
Yes! That book was very helpful for me. Very eye opening!
Yes! Stilachump! I finally got around to reading that book a year and a half ago (I’m now 6 years post divorce). I was surprised just how much of that book I highlighted as I read. A couple lines I highlighted because they reminded me of a friend’s husband or an ex I just dated, but 98% of everything else I highlighted was in response to stuff my ex did that was mentioned in that book.
Oh yes! Very many parts of that book highlighted after my divorce. I was surprised too.
I’ve continued to read it and found other men I’ve dated since in that book and it’s been so helpful for me to realize I need to stay away from any of those men.
Mine was and is the same.” Ignore 37 years of serial cheating, lying and spending money on other women, Look how good I have been to you and our children” He continues to tell me he’s a great guy. He says he is a family man with a certain flaw that most men have. The problem is me being too provincial and expecting too much. Post divorce he can’t understand why I don’t want to be “best friends” and celebrate family occasions with him.
Ding ding ding. Mine too. He sees no reason why he can’t keep the very expensive girlfriends (most are strippers) and stay married to me. And he cannot fathom why our adult children went no contact.
I feel like yes this is just another subtype of cheater/abuser. They all seem to have their own flavor or tricks. The best thing I heard was “Behavior is a language.” I think it is very common for the manipulators to say one thing and do another. I also struggle with the perennial question, Are they doing it on purpose and with intent? Or are they just believing their own lies, protecting themselves and their fragile ego, and are just a mixed up and hurt person who hurts others? During the marriage I Always took the stance that he didn’t intend to hurt me. (Hurt people hurt others, bad childhood, blah, blah blah) This caused me to not stand up for myself. When I started to take the view that there was at least some amount of intent on his part, it helped me protect myself. Remember he is a grown man with his own will. We have to stop thinking we “know better” than our cheater what’s really going on in his head. That is unhealthy and presumptuous (and I say that out of love because I have been there). My ex gave mixed signals when he was leaving. He moved out but didn’t ask for a divorce. Said there was no one else when there was. Asked me how I was doing in a concerned voice, but also moved out unexpectedly while I was at work and i came home to an empty house which felt like a slap in the face. And on and on. My advice is to be wise. Not unfair, not cruel, not vindictive but wise and protective of yourself, like you would protect a child. Protect yourself. Use his charm and image management to your advantage in the divorce. In my case, I let my ex think I did not know about his affair and I was not confrontational with him during the divorce. And he was cooperative during the divorce. After everything was done i told him (texted) that I knew all along about the other woman and told him off (He never did respond.) Good luck and I am sorry.
You make such an important point here:
“I also struggle with the perennial question, Are they doing it on purpose and with intent? Or are they just believing their own lies, protecting themselves and their fragile ego, and are just a mixed up and hurt person who hurts others? During the marriage I Always took the stance that he didn’t intend to hurt me. (Hurt people hurt others, bad childhood, blah, blah blah) This caused me to not stand up for myself. When I started to take the view that there was at least some amount of intent on his part, it helped me protect myself. Remember he is a grown man with his own will. We have to stop thinking we “know better” than our cheater what’s really going on in his head.”
I was in the same boat. I think being an empath makes it so easy for us to overlook or forgive or explain away behavior that is unacceptable.
Yes, I so badly want to explain it in a way that makes sense to me, from my perspective and ethics, and it requires some real mental gymnastics. “He’s just selfish” is easier but then hard to jive with the person I thought I loved and who I thought loved me for 16 years. It’s just a whole brain soup.
I, too, chalked it up to bad childhood experiences and struggling to do better. He ended up just like his father, but a covert rather than overt narc. Somehow that was better in his mind. All of it, any way you sliced it, added up to no good for me.
Yes, his dad is totally an overt narcissist. I used to be so impressed and relieved that he dodged the crazy bullet in his family. “Wow, how did he turn out so stable?” Spoiler alert, he didn’t.
That’s FW narcopath, covert narcissist sociopathic son of an overt grandiose narcissist
Me too! Every single therapist, starting with the one FW had before we met, said his mother was a narcissist. (Well, the one back in the ’80s said she was “a stone cold b843ch.”) She drove my FW crazy. He complained about her all the time. And yet, here he is, being a narcissist, just like Mommie Dearest. My therapist said it is not unusual for a person who grew up in such a family of origin to be okay for years, then suddenly revert into the family mold.
I think it can be advantageous to get a divorce done while Mr. Nice wants to keep looking nice, as long as he’s one of those who can see and accept the writing on the wall. I was able to file jointly and we worked on it like two classmates would work on a school project. Sure, it turned my stomach, but the end goal was to get out of the mindf*ck I found myself living in. It could have been so much worse if he decided to go scorched earth once his bluff was called, and I didn’t see any point in venting to or trying to find any comfort in the person who did this to me in the first place.
This is precisely where we are. I’m hoping to get this thing done while he feels like he has an image to preserve and wants to prove he’s a good man who made a mistake. I’ve got a plan and I’m working the plan. I hate it, but I’m doing it.
That is exactly how I felt. I just kept “plugging my nose” and doing the “hard thing” anyway. I pretty much cried every time I had to go to the divorce attorneys office. I cried signing the paperwork. It appears that he and his AP broke up the month after our divorce was final. Who knows how cooperative he would have been then.
(gosh Fearless Leader, does this mean that I can’t say F**kwit anymore? How about idiot? I’m keeping idiot unless directed otherwise. Dipshit? Are all of my posts going to sound like they’re coming from a coal miner’s ghost moving forward?)
So ChumpedWithHoney, I guess my larger question is what kind of sin are you more OK with-the sin of commission or sin of omission?
While yes, he did not put his hands on you, sounds like he never inappropriately raised his voice, etc, he also still betrayed you, your trust, and your safety and wellbeing (to say nothing of your mental health or trust moving forward.) I would frankly argue that his complete obliviousness or lack of concern for how it would be received WHEN you found out(it’s never “if”) is just as bad. Really…it sounds like this “good guy” was hoping you would never find out and that it would all blow over if you did. Are you ok with that? It’s still a “sin” whether or not there was malice aforethought. His attitude is hitting more as “that’s on her if she’s hurt” than “I want her to be sad and I want to be the one that is responsible.” “Less bad” is still by definition “bad.”
And I guarantee more is going to “come out in the wash” as you get further down the road. And I guarantee he is going to come off as less nice as the rose coloring peels off of your glasses there. Money will be missing. Something that did not seem quite right will make more sense. It always does. As I have been saying, awful behavior does not occur in the vacuum-it has happened more than once and/or has a bunch of other things tied up in it.
What makes a story “horror” is that you do not understand how it came to be. What makes a story “mighty” is when you do and take control of it. You are doing that by divorcing the idiot. Stay strong with that! We are here for you!
My personal traitor CLAIMED that she never planned to fall in love with Schmoopie during D-Day. That may have been the very first thing she ever told me where I knew I could never trust or believe her again. And I called her on it-if she never planned to do that then why did she encourage his advances? No answer.
At best that idiot was completely negligent and so busy being in “twu wuv” that she didn’t realize the magnitude of damage that she would be doing by proceeding. Except that she did. Because I told her. Even if I didn’t tell her (and you all know how little filter I have, she knew what it did to my father (she was well aware of all of that) and a reasonable person would know the level of damage that sort of thing would do. If they don’t, then there is a level of self-centered horse hockey that is completely inacceptable as far as I am concerned.
Mine though? There is a lot of evidence that she WAS outright malicious about it toward the end. I know I have waxed on all of this before-there is ample evidence that she was hoping that I would pull the trigger and end things so I would be the bad guy and have to live with the decision. There were times where it almost worked. I was stupid though. I loved her. I regret not pulling the trigger. I do not regret that she is gone though.
Happy Tuesday to those that celebrate!
My ex appeared to be kind and caring to me and almost everyone else. Later I learned that he lied about his education, accomplishments, fabricated military service, etc. while stealing non-marital assets from me and my family.
I had no idea of the malevolence he hid behind a mask.
ChumpedWithHoney, I have the same type of FW. I’ve seen this type labelled ‘community/communal narcissist’, which makes so much sense. My FW is a pillar of the community, his nice-guy image is all about his integrity, he’s soooo helpful to anyone who might need advice, a ride, a meal, some cash.
I was with him for decades. I believed I was the lucky one in the relationship, and he carefully cultivated that idea. In fact people literally told me often how lucky I was. When we were in the thick of raising young children, his M.O. was to say he would be home at X time but be an hour or two or three later because So-and-So needed advice, or was depressed, or he ran into So-and-So and they got to talking, or some incredibly important potential investor for his business venture wanted to talk…whatever. He was a Disneyland dad, swooping in with excitement, activities, games. He was beloved by all (and, it turns out, especially by himself). Plus he’s handsome, charming, blah blah blah.
Once I figured out he was lying and gaslighting me daily and had been in an affair for more than a year, he worked really hard to hoover me. He immediately changed his social media profile picture from a photo with relatives (which he’d used for a decade or so) to one of he and I and our children. What is more telling than that? It’s all about his image and he is desperate to keep his reputation as “Mr. Amazing” intact.
It’s been a year since DDay and I’m inching closer to divorce. I’m as close to No Contact as possible. Shocker: he wants to be friends. He says I am immature for not just moving on and being buddies so we can keep being a family. Um, no. He and his Schmoopie groomed our children to be her buddies during his double life stage. She befriended them on social media, bought them gifts, and the happy secret couple attended a social event with them. WTF! Of course, they want nothing to do with her.
The cognitive dissonance is real. He was never physically abusive toward me, nor did he raise his voice until the very end. During the discard phase, his contempt and rage were obvious to me because he had never treated me like that before. But if I called him on it, he denied it.
Here’s another example of how delusional these people are. I’ve been with this guy since we were 20. When we first met, he was a big player of strategy games. As his career took off, he became obsessed with business psychology and strategy books like The Art of War etc. The first time I had an inkling that he might be having an affair, and I called him on it, he denied everything and turned it all back on me (I was a bad wife etc., so obviously our marriage “had serious problems” which was news to me). I asked him point blank if he wanted to separate or divorce me since he was apparently so unhappy. He said no, he’d never thought about divorce or separation.
I said really? Because you’re a strategic thinker. So there must be a plan here.
And he looked at me with dead shark eyes and said, No, I’m not a strategic thinker.
This was a MONSTER red flag but I was still in cognitive dissonance land and I still believed the hype that he was a fundamentally good person who would never deliberately hurt me or his children.
I agree that “How He Gets Into Her Head” explains men like this in a way that makes perfect sense. They weaponize information about women and use it as an effective form of control.
It took me months to realize that FW shows all the traits of a narcissist and likely a sociopath. It’s so hard to accept that these people are wearing masks of decency, but inside they’re not decent at all.
Also met at 20. Also wants to be friends. Also have seen the rare, but real, flash of shark eyes. Looking forward to being on the other side of this mess.
My therapist worked in a prison before going into private practice. He reminded me that rapists, serial killers and other assortment of offenders, often lead with CHARM and Warmth and kindness. They can act and fake anyway they want to be, like a chameleon, to extract what they want. Handsome, winning trust, they literally get into.your mind and turn your warnings ⚠️ lights out. Pulling out the batteries 🔋. Reading your letter honey, gives me chills as my ex did the charm and kindness until I refused to play with him. Then it got ugly. Your STBX(?) thinks he still has you with his charm…there is NO WAY he would attempt to kiss you or lay even one finger on you, if he thought you meant what you said or if he thought he didn’t still have you in his back pocket. Or as my #1X said, I was just like a fish he could reel🎣 in or throw out whenever he wanted to. Honey, your very creepy Handsome Husband is playing you for a better settlement or something he knows he can get from you. If you keep doing what you are doing with weak knees, you will keep getting what you’ve got. Put your teeth in or decide you are a volunteer but this guy is NOT NICE, He’s just strategic, cunning and he knows your weakness. ESPECIALLY if you are still sleeping with him until the day of divorce or doing any other favors..watch and see what happens with NO CONTACT.
Ugh, yes, my FW was one of these types. Financially abusive (racked up a gambling debt behind my back while I was pregnant, then got himself fired for forgery). There were two occasions he was cruel and disrespectful, but begged forgiveness claiming it was a “bad joke.” His abusive was the slow-burn, manipulative type. Saying he would do “x” if I just compromised on “y.” When it came time for him to keep his end of the bargain, he would always find an excuse why he shouldn’t have to do “x,” after all.
Very much a people pleaser, often at my expense. I remember being in the hospital after delivering our daughter via cesarean, and wanting an afternoon w/o visitors so I could rest. He begged and begged for his AH father to visit. I was so tired! I didn’t understand why he couldn’t come later, but, I was laid up in bed, not ready for discharge for a couple days, and he wore me down. Two days later, I was finally home, and low and behold, his cousins from up the hill were coming down for a hockey game and just dying to meet the baby. Again, I was desperate for a day without visitors, I was 4 days out from a c-section, having had terrible sleep at the hospital, just wanting quiet and rest. No, he begged and begged once more.
He lied about everything, although I didn’t realize it at the time. He was “Mr. Charming” to everyone else. Always grabbing coffee for everyone when we were on vacation, grabbing extra blankets for all the wives if we were outside by a bonfire, very performative. Yet, not reliable as a partner for me, at all. Loads of weaponized incompetence. “Just ask me what you need!” I proceed to ask for help when I need help…. “No! You don’t need my help with that, you just don’t want me to go out and socialize! You’re controlling!” All the BS.
There was one instance, not long before we separated that was mildly physical, before then, no physical violence whatsoever. He had tried to playfully smack my behind while I was getting ready one morning, but really, he hit too hard. I told him, “Ow! That hurt!” Instead of saying, “Oh my gosh babe, I’m so sorry!” He said, “Toughen up!” WTF?!!! I called him out, he doubled down. I didn’t get any kind of apology from him until I confronted him in couples counseling a week later. I don’t remember the specifics, but there were certainly excuses why he couldn’t say he was sorry, properly, the first time.
I read Lundy Bancroft’s Why Does He Do That. I couldn’t believe how much I highlighted. I’m still uncomfortable saying, “He was abusive.”
Everything Tracy said, plus I want to add that being a liar is enough! Lying to your spouse (especially about something really important, like sleeping with someone else) is divorce-worthy. No other bad deed required.
I remember tepidly asking my then-therapist while I was going through the divorce, “Is lying emotional abuse?” She very enthusiastically confirmed that yes, lying is absolutely emotional abuse.
I’m years out.
But had to check I didn’t write this letter.
I’m NC, or the greyest of grey rocks.
And was shunned by most after our 31 year relationship was ended by a(nother 🤦♀️) Dday.
Because he is “such a great guy.” I must be a terrible person for that sweetheart to cheat (then do it again.) Right? Lost a lifetime of “friends.” And an entire family network. Incredibly painful.
A couple of years ago, after 3 years of literal NC, and several more of deep grey rock, our eldest graduated (in her 30s, as a mature student) from uni, and we played nice for the day. I wasn’t thrilled when he came and sat with us (sliding in beside me, rubbing his thigh up against mine, ugh, trying to chat, all friendly-like. But I sucked it up for this one day. As he left the bar we were getting pre-dinner drinks in, to go home (I was taking a group out for dinner) he hugged our two kids in attendance, then hugged me, and tried to kiss me…I ducked. The girls rolled their eyes at me (about his audacity.)
He’s onto another Schmoopie now. His Twu Wuv ended approximately a year ago? Dunno. Don’t care. Kids found out when new Schmoopie was sprung on them, unexpectedly 🤣
They don’t change. Just swap out a new warm body as the most recent model isn’t shiny anymore, I guess.
Despite all I know, I still occasionally try to untangle the skein. Knowing it’s pointless. It’s the trauma bond, and the desperate unresolved pain of deeply loving a mirage. Even with full knowledge and acceptance that was never real. His honey was so addictive.
Keep going. I know Tracy says the pain is finite. I disagree. But the pain does eventually lessen somewhat, with time, work, and gaining a life.
These sociopaths are something else entirely.
same, years out but could have written this letter, too. Mine also told me he never said a mean word about me to any of his affair partners, thus proving he’s a stand up guy.
When my husband finally, after 6 months of separation, started telling people we were separated (because I said I want a divorce, for real), he said he called his mom and “defended your honor. I absolutely defended your honor. I told her this is my fault.” He said it over and over again. I guess I was supposed to say thank you? Yeah, reminder, I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. Thanks for “defending my honor.”
Good lord. Hope you said you’ve been telling everyone the truth about him.
I am the same 10 years out-the pain has lessened. Statistically at my age I will not re-partner, but I have gained so much and do not miss him. I find it challenging to be a woman near 60 alone/divorced- people do shun you. I sort of think I was that person, before the house of cards fell down. I feel shame for that! But, I have a good life, many friends, and my work and health are better than ever. And I am happy -alive, really- now that I am free from abuse, and that is the greatest gift.
Society favors being partnered and is harsh especially to single women, especially our age group and older.
I hope that is changing with the younger generations of women who seem more aware of patriarchy, toxic relationships and abuse.
ChumpedWithHoney,
Your story sounds a lot like mine. STBX (Someday to be Ex, lol) comes across as charming, intelligent, friendly, humble, and just an all-around nice guy. I trusted him more and thought I knew him better than anyone in my life. Unlike yours, there had been times when he raised his voice, called me a bad name, threw something, or threatened divorce. There were several times over the years when I suspected cheating, but could never find any proof, and if I dared say anything about it, he always had a reasonable explanation (or as I can see now, just gaslit me). But these things were rare. As Chump Lady says, I “spackled.” There were other things, subtler things, but, like you, I explained away the pain as the “work” of marriage. The near-final straw was an emotional affair that only became obvious because we were all working from home over the Covid lockdown and beyond. (I suspect it got physical when they met up at a work offsite, but couldn’t prove it.)
I learned from a therapist about covert narcissism, and opening my eyes to this is what eventually gave me the courage to escape after 27 years of marriage. The book that helped me the most to see exactly what I was dealing with was The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist by Debbie Mirza. Definitely take a look – I think it will help you get more clarity.
I had a “nice” cheater who “didn’t mean any harm” too, otherwise known as a covert narcissist. Until there was no longer any point in trying to make me believe he was nice, that is.
CWH, he still finds you of use for impression management, so you are getting the soft soap. Sometimes it’s not just about managing their impression to others, but about deluding themselves about who they are. My FW has gone back to pretending to be nice, even though he knows I’ve seen the skull beneath the skin. He actually thinks he can slip the mask back on seamlessly and be believed.
I predict that you will see the real FW when you become so troublesome in his eyes that he can’t keep the mask on anymore.
As for if they mean harm, people who don’t mean harm avoid doing harm. It’s not like cheating is just a mistake they made without thinking it through. With the exception of a single drunken ONS that is confessed immediately, it’s a very deliberate ongoing con job. To choose your friend for an OW adds another layer of ugliness to it.
So I would say you were wise to prepare yourself for f**kery. If it doesn’t happen, it will be because he has other fish to fry and isn’t interested in tormenting you, not due to innate goodness.
Chumped with honey,
I’m one year away from DDay, and no one would mistake my ex FW for a “nice guy.” In the immediate aftermath of DDay, I got lies, anger, rage, repeat. It made it a lot easier to go and stay no contact. My heart goes out to you and the total mindf**k you are dealing with.
Reading Evan Stark’s work on coercive control has really helped me understand why I stayed with my FW for 30+ years despite all of the blazing red flags. We have a tendency to assume that others are acting with the same good intentions that we often have. I was raised to be kind and considerate, so I always assumed that my FW was acting with my best interests in mind despite all of the evidence to the contrary. It sounds like your STBX is far more sophisticated than mine. I think he’s using the nice guy act to keep you tethered to him just in case things don’t work out as planned. It’s also a really f**ked up way to feed your own self-doubt and to blameshift. But good for you for seeing through it. Stay strong and pretend like you buy the nice guy act so you can get free.
I have been divorced from The Cheater for 17 years now, but this post reawoke some memories for me. He never raised his voice to me either, never hit me, never denigrated me (in public), but around the time that I began to suspect he was cheating, he began making horrible driving decisions when we’d be in the car together and I was in the passenger seat. Prior to this he was a safe driver, but suddenly, he was taking left hand turns DIRECTLY in front of oncoming traffic. Many times, if the other car hadn’t slammed on their brakes, I would’ve taken the brunt of the collision. Did I mention I had a large life insurance policy on me though my work?
Things got weird one time when some guy out of the blue side-swiped us, and it was clearly on purpose. We pulled over and so did the guy who hit us. The driver had this weird creepy smile on his face and then Cheater starts yelling at him but the guy doesn’t say anything, he just stands there, smirking and laughing, and suddenly I realize it seems they know each other. I can’t prove it, but I wondered at the time if it was a “paid accident” that didn’t go as planned.
If you have a cheater who’s yelling and raging and insulting, it’s awful but you know what you’re dealing with, and you can get an idea of what he’s capable of. With “Mr. Charming,” you really, really don’t know what you’re dealing with. You could be in serious life-threatening danger, but because he’s confused you with his charm, you won’t suspect an attempt on your life, and that makes you very vulnerable.
I was brain-washed enough to put up with the cheating, but I had also been diagnosed with cancer around that time, and I finally figured out if the cancer didn’t finish me off, he would. One day I just packed what I could fit in my car and moved out while he was gone, I was in fear for my life (we were renting an apartment and I wasn’t leaving a marital home).
Turns out, he was cheating and had been for years.
So yeah, he never raised his voice to me, he was just a nice guy, planning a nice accident for me.
Sheesh I had a very similar experience. Thankful to be alive
Dear Chumped with Honey,
Oh dear God, you were basically married to Arfie Aardvark.
For what it’s worth, the “well intended predator” is a skein I’ve spent a lot of my life untangling but I promise not to untangle in the “poor confused sausage doesn’t know better” direction, but in my signature “run screaming” direction.
I think the trope is essential for understanding what journalist Chris Hedges calls the “myth of human progress” which underlies some of the most savage acts of colonialism in history which were always undertaken under the civil and empathic and “nice” pretense of spreading civilized culture or democracy. But before I end up scribbling some long winded treatise on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, I’ll try to explain why this is personally fascinating to me.
We were just talking about the Arfie character a few weeks ago on this forum. If you read the novel or saw the original film version of Catch 22, you might remember Arfie as the ultimate personification of the “cheery entitled psychopath.”
I think actor Charles Grodin (who, in actuality, was the son of hard-working Orthodox Jewish parents, not one of the insufferable country club WASPs he specialized in lampooning) nails the terrifying “type” better than anyone ever has before or since: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9wcK6qvCqI&t=14s
In any case, the Arfie character always rang true to me. I read the book as part of the summer reading list when I got a scholarship to a particularly fancy prep school. Little did I know that the book and film would help me process the fact that wealthy scions of industry at this school would sometimes choose one of the “under-resourced” students like me to sexually target. Some were aggressive about it but some were disturbingly cheerful. For instance, an upperclassman named Mark never stopped smiling and joking as he pinned me to the mat in an abandoned gym, at least until a group of students walked in and I got away relatively unscathed. He didn’t even seem angry that I got away like most “foiled” predators would have been. He remained bizarrely cheerful throughout the school year.
I was so confused about what happened at first that I didn’t tell staff or my parents (who would have raided the school). Maybe my gut told me that, in a school where even the teachers were treated like servants, my family would be eaten alive and nothing would have been done. But what seemed to pull it up short was the risk of scandal. I was relieved and grateful when, shortly after the gym incident, one of the black scholarship students from the actual “hood” pulled a knife on her particular predator and put the administration and even untouchable masters of the universe parents on high alert.
Though most of the sexual predators I later ran up against in my former narc-filled industry expressed a more “hostile” and angry brand of sexism, I understood that the other type existed. So on a college break trip to London I believed the warnings I heard about “posh West end rapists” and how they’d continue nattering cheerfully about the weather or summers in Malaga in plummy accents while barring the exits and clamping their hands over your mouth. True to form, I encountered some of these “toff” monsters. Disarming and grooming tourists with their Brideshead Revisited bs must have been a favorite boarding school sport.
From studying feminist lit and sociology at the time, I wondered if what afforded the disarming predators their veneer of “aplomb” was the depth of undisputed entitlement in culture where many still actually believed in the divine right of kings and superior birthright. For example, it’s clear from Regency era Chinoiserie/Japonaiserie prints showing pastoral scenes of Asia, at least up until the colonies violently revolted, British colonialists viewed colonized and effectively enslaved populations with patronizing affection. It’s the same with the stereotype of the “genteel” plantation owner from the old south which is dependent on the illusion of happily loyal slaves. Where rage and hatred really begin to accompany domination is when the lords and masters start to feel thwarted.
I think that’s the takeaway and what makes the Aardvark character and also the character of Milo Minderbinder so unsettling. Though their optimism seems delusional at first, it turns out that neither are wrong that there will be no negative personal consequences for their most heinous deeds. This is why I think Heller is arguing that this kind of so-called narcissistic psychopathology might not be so much a “disorder” as perfectly adaptively suited to circumstances where civil norms begin to break down (such as war) or where those niceties were never enforced so there’s no pretense about them (such as monarchic or totalitarian societies).
Anyway, I can totally understand why you’re so bewildered and creeped out by your STBex. Even if the type doesn’t seem exactly garden variety in societies that have a veneer of equality and democracy, they exist and, because their behavior seems designed– at least in a statistical or theoretical sense– to literally get away with murder, it’s simply practical common sense not to put that or anything else past them.
I watched the clip. I can’t say that feels unfamiliar. This is the jovial attitude he had while driving us to the brink of bankruptcy and expecting me to clean it up. Triggered.
I think that’s the power of art. If it really nails reality, it can be shocking and disgusting but it also keeps us from feeling alone. Obviously someone else must have “gotten it” if they were able to depict the horror.
It’s interesting that the actor who created the grotesque Arfie character for film dedicated the last years of his life to trying to liberate women imprisoned for killing their batterers and pimps. I like to think that the author of the novel (Jewish WWII veteran) and actor who gave life to the Arfie character were inspired by this kind of therapeutic rage and rebellion against that precise type of deadly hypocrite.
If you think about it, we’re in pretty great company despising and fearing creeps like that since most of classic literature and film is dedicated to exposing that kind of creepery. 😉
Serial killers are quite charming………
Or so dull that they evade suspicion for years. The film Citizen X on real life Soviet-era serial killer Andrew Chikatilo illustrates the bland and asexual “camouflage” principle brilliantly.
It was one of the favorite films of my late mother who participated for decades in news investigations of organized crime, domestic terrorism and serial killers. She felt it rang true. I don’t have as strong a stomach as she did and always have to fast-forward past the violent scenes but I think the film is extraordinary. The writing is amazing and Stephen Rea, Max Von Sydow, Jeffrey DeMunn and Donald Sutherland give the performances of their lives in it.
As a young woman, I was always told that bland, unassuming, “nice” men were the best and us woman basically had a moral obligation to become their partners (while always looking like world-class supermodels for them, because those men deserved the best). I used to date a few men like that (and some more typical “incel” types), and some of them turned out to be quite scary and creepy.
The BTK serial killer was a bland church deacon. Personally, I’ve seen creeps wearing every guise imaginable.
Omg (is that a good enough abbreviation?), this is my FW.
I have mostly stopped looking for evidence of his lying and cheating. You were right, Chump Lady, it does get to you. Plus, my attorney’s paralegal says we have plenty.
But still, I am glad that some things do pop up from time to time. For example, FW doesn’t realize that when he marks down a reservation for a romantic dinner for two in his Google Calendar, it shows up on mine as well.
So, when he’s SO SAD and it’s SO PAINFUL to him that our adult children won’t have contact with him (Somehow, that’s their fault), up will pop his latest hot date at one of the swankiest restaurants in town for that very night. Same paralegal said all the FWs tend to use the same restaurants, btw.
I’m glad I see this, even though it feels like whiplash, because even after everything, he is still that convincing. And I am sure he has convinced others who don’t have that peek behind the scenes, such as his family.
I am convinced that it is much easier for him to lie than it is to tell the truth. He just says whatever he needs to in that moment to get what he wants, get out of trouble, or look like a good guy. He’ll say one thing to one person, then turn around and tell a completely different story to another person. Any resemblance to the truth in anything he says is purely coincidental.
It’s mind-bending.
I am writing down all the book recs, and you guys are scaring me about how quickly someone like him can turn dangerous. Early on, a friend was adamant that I change my locks and install a camera system and a security system. I did it, thinking it was overkill, but maybe not.
Are you living my life LOL?
“I didn’t mean to hurt you” is a completely meaningless and empty statement when said by someone who consciously chose to do something hurtful.
Cheating is hurtful. He knows that. He chose to do it anyway. He knew it would hurt you when you found out. If he “didn’t mean to” hurt you then wtf did he mean to do?
The last person who said this to me did not get away with that excuse. I told him he had a choice to do something objectively hurtful or to be honest and he chose the hurtful thing. So I didn’t want to hear it.
When they say this, they mean they didn’t mean for you to find out. They could not possibly care less about hurting you.
Bernie Madoff employed all kinds of “nice” to hide that he was emptying the bank accounts of clients and those around him.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
With truly decent people, there is an ABSENCE of deceptive and harmful behavior towards others.
The problem I have with the recent concept of “love languages” is that they are all behaviors employed by unsafe and untrustworthy individuals to hide malicious intent. You can’t immediately see the motive behind the behavior.
A detective once told me “you only know a person as much as they will let you.” I had one of those Nice Guy husbands. It was the shock of my life to find out that I did not know the person I was with for twenty seven years. (We dated for seven years before getting married, living together for six of those years.)
The antidote is to be rock solid being on my own so that if and when dealbreaking information about an intimate partner comes in, I am willing and able to let go and walk away.
♥️
Hi CN, thank you so much for your comments and support. I will absolutely take your book recommendations. “Why Does He Do That” was one of the first books I read, recommended by a business acquaintance who exited a narcissistic marriage years ago, and I spent several weeks sobbing and staring at walls processing the realization that what I was living was abuse. I will absolutely pick up the others. Thank you all.
For those concerned I am wavering, I am divorcing him. Since DDay in July, I have been processing the grief and shock, laying the groundwork to protect myself and my son, and shoring up my emotional resources and resolve to truly exit. During that time, we signed a partition and exchange agreement which is written to be very protective of me and that is simplifying the divorce a bit. I have not filed yet due to incredibly complex business realities, sensitive closings and a mountain of debt. He has built a financial life that is so complex and such a high wire act that it is head spinning. I couldn’t understand for years why we couldn’t just do money like normal people. Now I see that the complexity, risk, debt and lack of liquidity all keep him in the driver’s seat. It’s very difficult for anyone else to call the shots when only he knows how the maze works. Hello, covert financial abuse.
I am doing everything in communication with my attorneys, who have given me a green light on coming to terms with him separately prior to filing, which is so far going well. Painful, but productive. Since I spent several years helping him run his business, and we did significant financial disclosures during the partition and exchange, I am at peace with this choice, and the risks inherent in it. Of course, I’m terrified that he’s bamboozling me and that the mask will come off any minute. All of the options are sh*tty. I’m doing my best, as I know you all are, to pick the least bad option from the poo buffet. Hm, turd sandwich or diarrhea soup? Which will it be?
Thanks again CN. You guys have helped me stay sane, understand his behavior, stop gaslighting myself and find the courage and resolve to leave, even if to the world our marriage looks “great.” I have “Trust that they suck” and “Is this relationship acceptable to you”, “cake eating” “sad sausage” and “wife appliance” on speed dial in my head, and I need them regularly to anchor myself in reality.
I WILL BE divorced in 2026. Wish me luck. Thanks, Tracy, for everything.