He Just Used Her ‘for Relief’
Her husband explained his latest affair as — he used the Other Woman “for relief”. The Friday Challenge is to share your stupid, cheater coping mechanism excuses.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I just had my umpteenth D-Day (five? seven?) with my wonderful husband, care partner, lover, dear friend. He is an important part of my family.
But it always comes down to: He just used her for “relief”.
Which makes me so sad for his other woman. (How could I possibly hate someone who hates herself even more than I apparently hate myself?) Puts both of us in the category of being a sexual implement — different purposes, different delivery.
I don’t expect/want an answer to my letter. My questions don’t have answers. To tell the whole truth, it feels right to go into retirement as a single person. I fit in better with my demographic, not to mention my own introverted temperament. But God DAMN, he’s a good dancer.
Thanks for being there for those of us who would otherwise make the mistake of blaming ourselves.
Keyboardsavant
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Dear Keyboardsavant,
I fervently hope you do go into retirement as a single person. And if your cheating husband becomes indignant at a divorce summons, reply: “I needed relief.”
There are other more worthy dance partners. And frankly, I’d rather waltz with a grizzly bear than spend my life with someone who treats women like disposable cum tissues.
He needs relief? Send him to a robotic milker. You know, like they have at those high-end dairy farms. Cows just wander up, get serviced, lumber off.
Problem solved.
Your letter, however, has provided an instructive Friday Challenge. Stupid cheater coping mechanism excuses.
We’ve all heard them. Hey, it was stress relief! It didn’t mean anything. (But it’s also a secret and you can’t ask about it… ) Don’t you care about their HAPPINESS?
TGIF.
I have heard every excuse and every hollow promise of “never again” more times than I can admit without embarrassment. His current mantra is “this is fixable if you would just look forward instead of backward.” Huh ? Yes, he is still seeing his AP of several years , but he feels entitled to keep his options open since I won’t commit to taking him back.His relationship(s) outside of our marriage were and are all my fault for not seeing all of the good in him.
I’m doing all the things with her that I wanted to do with you.
I’m happily single and retired living my best life. The future faking landed AP in central Florida, in a55+ park with all residents in their 80’s. Too broke to move yet suddenly sad sausage complaints roll in.
The kids (then 11, 16 and 18) discovered a load of texts between Ex-Mrs LFTT and her AP, because Ex-Mrs LFTT’s iPhone was synched to an iPad that our youngest daughter used. Ex-Mrs LFTT’s excuse was simply that “None of the stuff mentioned in the texts actually happened, it was just all a running joke between myself and an old boyfriend.” She then refused to discuss the texts further on the grounds that the information was personal and therefore none of my business.
I guess that you could call it “gaslighting” but I prefer the term “barefaced lies.”
LFTT
Never understood why I need to pin this person to the wall with the truth when their behavior surrounding their denying it and living in dissonance is enough. The fact that they think they “win” when you can’t Sherlock Holmes them with an eloquent explanation of their deceit is bonkers. What exactly do they win? And what exactly do we chumps win when we can’t get them dead to rights? The surrounding suckage of the situation is plenty to give the whole thing a big no thank you.
I want to send someone at Apple 3 dozen roses! That’s EXACTLY how I caught my cheater. His iPhone synched to the iPad and our 9 year old brought it to me. Otherwise all of his secrets and lies would have gone on indefinitely and I would have continued to feel crazy. I think about it all the time. It was exactly a year ago that this happened and if the universe hadn’t done me that solid I’d still be miserable. Now my ex and all of his creepy cheating friends use WhatsApp. And if you notice, the new ad campaign for that company is about guaranteed privacy. Ugh.
I had her handwritten note to herself about a rendezous with an AP and read it outloud in front of marriage counselor. Her response? “That doesn’t prove anything!” Yeah, sure. But why are the veins on your face popping out and your face is beet red?
Lie, lie, lie.
Oh wow, I think that line comes from page 73 of the Cheater’s Guide!!! Some of my personal favorites that my exFW used included:
The list goes on but it is still cheater speak. Hopefully Keyboardsavant will get out! I did and I was near retirement. I got a great settlement and was able to retire this year. It is awesome without an entitled FW around! All I can say is that nobody should live what time remains in life with a FW.
Mine was similar. Straight from Ester Perel’s cheating “reasons”.
Monogamy is not naturalYou can love more than one person at the same time.He thinks it is right and good to tell your “friends” you love them.He needs sexual variety.We had only been with each other and he wanted the chance to be with someone else.There weren’t good options for swinging in our city.She is caring and so much like him and his mother. (I really didn’t like his mother and tolerated her until she died.)She has a PhD and understands the academic life like him.She has friends.She likes to do adventurous activities. (They met on a Grand Canyon rafting trip he organized in early April (cold water and he knows I don’t like cold water but he enjoys it??? *eyeroll* “You don’t like doing hard things”. Me and our two young children were not invited but his brother was and old friends were.)I ended up doing a lot of hard things after D-Day that he didn’t do. Therapy, crying, selling my house, filing for divorce and fighting with him for basic decency, betrayal trauma for his unapologetic behavior, him spending time with AP and our kids within weeks of the affair starting. Countless other emotional hard things he avoids.
He has no problem doing things he wants to do while knowing it will hurt people. You are the problem for having a problem with it.
They suck
The judgment also checks. Yours judged you for not being into hardy adventures and thus lesser. Mine judged me for enjoying carbs and not being an exercise anorexic. He has found the church of CrossFit and I was a lowly heathen.
All this is so familiar. My FW also hasn’t been with anyone but me and felt he missed out on “sowing wild oats”. In fact, I saw him reading an awful book with that title around the time he first stepped out on the marriage. Told me that first cheating didn’t feel any better than masturbation and wasn’t worth it. Then proceeded to test that theory again. Just to be sure, I guess. Also didn’t want to do anything hard after separation and was surprised at any consequences. Im still going through it with trial set for March. I’m exhausted but one day it will be over and I will be FW free. I’ve come to understand that he is a shallow person capable only of appreciating shallow gifts. It’s like we are different species and my depth and gifts, while real, just don’t register on his value system (like we humans can’t hear a dog whistle). This logic frees me from trying to make him see my worth or what he lost.
I think mine is typical for women that cheat but I will tell it anyway. She said she needed his attention. – Love Bombing. She said that she knew she had to have sex with him to keep it coming. No pun intended.
These are the people who don’t understand that the shiny wears off of everything eventually, but don’t understand that this includes their “wonderful” selves too. So it must be a you problem.
Sheesh, so crazy.
When I asked why he’d lied to me about his secret sexual world, he told me: “I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d never find out about it.”
That is one of the few thing he told me that I believe to be true.
Mine said something similar. That she thought to herself, before doing it, what’s the harm if he never finds out?
When therapist was trying to elicit an answer on why he had a secret sexual basement. “My sister and brother got music lessons but I didn’t…” Said in a weepy voice, followed by his CSAT asking him if that made him feel “less than” which resulted in tears in his eyes at how wrongly he was treated….
Well, at least I learned what was to blame. Snort! Apparently kazoo lessons would have resulted in his becoming a man of integrity and saved my marriage.
Was pissed when I pointed out that he got martial arts classes and they did not.
Sadly, it turned out that he didn’t just feel inferior…he actually was inferior.
In the words of Cheaty McLiarface, “I enjoyed, and was attracted to her happy disposition and it felt good to talk with her and get a break from work.”
Translation: Reality awaited me at home in the form of my wife and young child. She had expectations of me that she believed that I was working hard to meet when I was really doing pretty much what I wanted to do. I really was happy with her as long as she made her needs small and made me look like a stellar husband and father. When my manipulation tactics started to be less effective the cognitive dissonance it created in her changed her attitude and she could be critical at times. At first it wasn’t a problem for me because it just reinforced my entitlement. I deserved to “feel good” by seeking validation from other women. Eventually she realized that I hadn’t been fiscally responsible to the family or emotionally loyal to her and she tried to hold me accountable. I still can’t understand why she doesn’t see that it wasn’t my deceptive manipulation and “one foot out the door” syndrome that destroyed our relationship. It was her critical and negative behaviors. If only she hadn’t (seen behind my mask) changed.
I will definitely be going into retirement as a single person.
Oh yeah… It’s the I did this to you, but it’s your fault because you were reacting appropriately to something terrible in which you didn’t exactly know what happening because I never exactly told you and it made me even sadder, lonlier, wah wah wah. Holy DARVO, Batman!
Is “I used her” really an excuse or rather an admission of who they are and what they are capable of?
100% this. It’s a look behind the mask.
FW in my case called the AP “Human Prozac” right after D-day when he was trying to rationalize that his secret day drinking, chronic porn use, emotional abuse and gaslighting during his affair and the affair itself stemmed from “suicidal depression” that, of course, I had somehow caused in him based on vague charges.
But then, oops, he immediately did a 180 and angrily denied ever saying that since his favorite coercion tactic up to that point had been accusing me of being an “unfit parent” due to my supposed mental instability and possible “suicidality” (um, huh? That time I cried really hard? The situational insomnia and abuse-related weight loss?). I think he wanted to retain the option to use that claim again in the future in case he needed to terrorize me by weaponizing custody but it would hardly work if he labeled himself suicidal.
But one thing that was always clear is that I didn’t “drive” him to suicidal ideation. If he actually fell that far down the abyss, he did it to himself. Or else he was merely projecting some subconscious awareness that he was doing things to me that would logically drive anyone to the brink.
But I no longer really care which is the case. If it weren’t for the fact that my kids depend on FW’s income or the fact that it would darken the kids’ lives if their dad offed himself, I no longer care whether he was once genuinely suicidal or not. It could be true and untrue at the same time like everything else involving abusive people who lack cohesive character and “core selves,”
I just sort of reason that abusers’ core selves are like computers with faulty WiFi connections. Basically, abusers beliefs, self images, feelings and capacity for love erratically come in and fade out so that, in the end, you have no idea what’s real or who they really are.
And they probably don’t know either. But before that sounds like a sad sausage alibi, I think it’s the exact reason they can be so diabolically credible in convincing prospective victims and bystanders of their harmless good intentions. But just like like a laptop with a terrible Bluetooth connection is worse than useless and can even be disastrous for people who depend on consistent web access for various critical personal and professional reasons, a partner whose capacity for love and empathy randomly comes and goes can be dangerous as well.
regarding suicidality, the narcs love to dominate that narrative as well – you can’t even briefly feel like giving up (which frankly any normal person would experience living with a fraud), and for god sake’s don’t mention you feel bad, or anything at all, because that must be replaced by their superior emotions and brush with the abyss. My ex was suddenly revealing he had spent his childhood sitting near a gunsafe, in fact he was sitting next to it right now (in his old family home now his brother’s house with the the wife and kids in the next room, I’m really sure they let him in and said help yourself to a cup of tea and a gun), after I mentioned in a text not currently feeling that great a week after D Day. He had never mentioned this traumatic childhood or feeling so poorly the whole time i had known him. All fake rubbish of course, I am sure some of them eventually pull it off pardon the pun.
“It could be true and untrue at the same time like everything else involving abusive people who lack cohesive character and “core selves,”
I just sort of reason that abusers’ core selves are like computers with faulty WiFi connections. Basically, abusers beliefs, self images, feelings and capacity for love erratically come in and fade out so that, in the end, you have no idea what’s real or who they really are.
…a partner whose capacity for love and empathy randomly comes and goes can be dangerous as well.”
Brilliant!
When I was in Japan recently, I saw sex toys marketed as “stress relief” products. If that fuckwit just wanted relief he was a trip to Spencer Gifts away (they still have those, I checked!)
Her biggest excuse was that she wanted more friends outside of me (I did start to find it odd over the years that she seemed to cycle through friends, told me not to interact with certain of her college friends I was friendly with almost at random-got really weird when people she used to work with started working with me and told me to “be careful” around them). It was one of those “at face value she has a point”-I had my own friend circles that I cultivated and spent time with, my own codependency be damned.
Hindsight being 20/20 she has an avoidant personality. She was the type that would prefer to start over or “get a new one” rather than fix or maintain the one she had-be it phones, jobs, or people. I was going through a rough patch and needed more support; she was also in the blitz period of her grad program when the fuckwittery got bad (well, bad to worse if we are being honest).
There is that clinical part of me that wonders if that was how she coped (maladaptive coping is still coping, see also: addiction) with that period of her life. I famously do not recall much of that stretch of my education other than weird little PTSD-like flashbacks to something that happened at my internship or something said in a classroom.
My clinical empathy brain notwithstanding-that still did not give her license to do what she did. She was a gym membership or a painting class away from achieving the same stress relief. For somebody that regularly complained that she was a “grown ass woman” she never seemed to be able to handle her business like an adult(and I have the shredding receipt to prove it!)
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday!
“Wonderful people don’t screw around with married people, and wonderful married people don’t screw around.”
– Dr Frank Pittman
I do not want to enable myths about the definition of “wonderful” to go unchallenged.
(I’m assuming the writer’s description of her husband as “ wonderful husband, care partner, lover, dear friend” is sincere.)
There is nothing wonderful, caring, loving, or friend-like in this man’s behavior according to my understanding of what those adjectives mean.
I found it essential and incredibly important in my recovery be accurate when assessing the character of my former so-called husband.
Check out Jillian Turecki on social media. She’s an excellent resource for learning what the characteristics of healthy relationships are.
❤️
I had to take some time to really think about this. I guess that means I’m closer to Tuesday?
My ex told me he wanted to do stuff that it would seem wrong to do with me as he viewed me as more “pure” or something. (I initiated sex 99% of the time.) Just made me roll my eyes even then.
See my comment about this. I was told the same that there are certain things men should not do with their wives so it’s ok to go find someone else to do these things with. And it’s not cheating! I get the impression this came from Esther Perrel.
When his “emotional” affair (later confirmed to be one of dozens of physical affairs) was revealed, I asked the typical chump question what she had to offer that I did not. His response: “You know that blow pops are my favorite candy and you’ve never once bought me blow pops. When she and I were at Target, she remembered I love blow pops and put a bag in the cart. For the first time, I felt truly seen.” (At the time, she was 19. He was 47.)
Oh my! How ridiculous is that?? Gotta buy him blow pops, huh?
She was blowing more than just bubbles.
Mine was a serial cheater, and he tearfully told me that he didn’t know why he couldn’t stop cheating. He just liked the feeling of having a crush on someone and knowing that they wanted him too. He said that he had low self esteem. 🙄
While that might be the case, he also held you in low esteem, not ok. It’s not about you, it’s a void in him. A constant need for validation. And people like that have no business getting into committed relationships, they are not capable of having them. Their partners and kids become collateral damage to their “low self esteem”.
I got that too. The timeline he gave me was probably bogus/missing additional time, but there were a couple majors moves along the way. I asked why he didn’t stop when we moved from x place to y place and his answer was a tearful “I don’t know.” They certainly don’t, and them not knowing or being befuddled by their own continued shitty behavior isn’t a reason for you to stick around and help them (probably not) figure it out.
Following over a year of discard, where I thought the FW had a brain tumour because his behaviour and moods were so off (many of us here have been down that route hey), he admitted to a ‘distraction’. Yes his howorker was a ‘distraction’. Lord knows what he needed distraction from, me I guess being a loving, caring wife of 35 years. Anyhoo this was over 5 years ago and I am so at meh it’s unreal. Living my best life I am. For any newbie here believe me meh comes to you x
One man told me that lots of men have sex with other women because “there are certain things you should not do with your wife.”
And because they need different experiences. And that these things are not cheating so nothing wrong with it.
So my response is why get married then? Were these things ok with the woman before you got married? Once married, you don’t do certain things? So you can’t explore things sexually with your wife?
What bullshit!
Dear not- Savant…though you are writing here, there is Chump in you but not CHUMP. You are a VOLUNTEER who is brilliant enough to Stop the madness and get out of your TLC for an arrogant and ENTITLED CHEATER. No advice from me 2x .it’s the art the pure art form of multiple lovers all wanting to be center stage with a diligent creep. No one likes to hear that but I gave my 2nd cheater 10 days with him saying..he hopes l had learned my lesson on how to service him properly. It’s you bad and her coming up. Just STOP THE MADNESS…It’s so dehumanizing for you…you are playing with someone who USES YOU SAVE YOURSELF. CHUMPX2 OVER AND OUT
“I had to do it because I just have so much love to give!”
Serial predator cheaterface at the time had been completely neglecting me to the point I didn’t even feel like I existed in her world.
Oh yeah the whole using an affair as medicine. They are unhappy with some aspect of their life. May not even be you. Maybe its their job, their commute, their medical issue, ect., and of course they are gonna blame you for something. They are unhappy, negative people deep down. Unable to have a true loving relationship, its all smoke and mirrors. They are deeply disturbed, mentally ill, unstable, Personality disordered, sociopaths, psychotic, abusive. Take your pick, but they are not normal like you and I. They pick us because we are kind, loving, fixers who bond and want to help them and take care of them. Yes we are a bit naive and dont see through their façade. Again, why we get chosen. Mine actually said this to me at one point. He liked that I was naive. Well I am not anymore! Thanks to him I view everyone through suspicious lenses.
These AP have no idea. They think this person is normal and really likes them. Their one twu luv. And of course they talk smack about their spouse. My spouse is ungrateful, not interested, no sex, no attention, Im staying for the kids, shes unstable and will off themselves if I leave, blah, blah, blah. The AP is naive too, a bit dumb( you have to be to believe the bad marriage BS), a bit desperate(these people are not successful in relationships), and a bit selfish A-holes(to be willing to get involved with married people). FW told 15 year younger colleague mentee that horrible wife was ungrateful and never said thank you. Who knows what he told the other work colleague AP about me, who cares? They are both older women who never married or had kids. They are both selfish and are in a selfish profession, which by its nature attracts people who like to argue and who like conflict. Who knows if they ever realized that they both had Affairs with the same mutual colleague at work? I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew. Things like that dont bother these people. They are off their rockers. Again, unable to have normal relationships with normal people. The cheaters cast around like attention whores, giving people attention. The ones who bite are the ones they pursue. There are plenty of people who they try for, and FW pissed off a woman in the same profession and her husband with his attention. She wasn’t interested she had a happy marriage.
I’ve been told by one man I was seeing it’s not cheating if you pick someone up in a bar or only have sex with them one time. Hence it’s ok to go to prostitutes, etc. Cheating only applies if you see them multiple times because then you have a relationship with them.
So to him monogamy meant that yes you are the main person I am with but it’s ok to see others as long as it’s only one time.
I hope you left that man sitting where he was before he finished that entire asinine thought.
My fuckwit told me: You made our bedroom so stressful by always accusing me of things and crying yourself to sleep, I needed something transactional.
Yes, I caught him with escorts, among other things. Transactional is the perfect way to describe my ex, he doesn’t do anything unless there is something in it for him. Sadly I am tied to him for another 8 years with kids. Otherwise I’d gladly never see that FW again.
Right – like us not wanting to sleep with them was an us problem rather than we don’t feel safe, comfortable, trusting, loved… You know, all those things they extract from the relationship when they cheat. Of course they have to go looking elsewhere because these nimrods plum forgot they already had something where they were! Just goes back to the fact that if this were not a satisfactory relationship, one can always leave ethically and honestly. Jives much more nicely with their cognitive dissonance to pin their shortcomings and missteps on us with this shit logic.
It’s was Jan 1, 2021 and one of the many idiotic excuses cheater ex gave me was that I complained about Trump too much. Seriously. Ex was not a Trump supporter. And I’d seen the year of texts between him and his latest affair person and she complained about Trump as much as I did if not more. OK for her I guess but not for his wife of 30+ years and mother of his 3 kids. These people are grifters and fools
“Maladaptive Coping Strategies”
He spent a lot of money finding the correct therapist to rename his “Asian Hooker Fetish,” which coincidentally also cost us a lot of money over 35 years. Fortunately, he found someone in AA who also doesn’t believe in looking backwards and making amends. So FW, enabler and half my retirement account have moved to Tennessee. (He is still insisting on too much money for me to buy the marital home I want to keep.) I am sure she is thrilled at her new found wealth, and will work hard to keep him happy. I am grateful the wonderful humans here at CN kept me from tap dancing and contorting myself. I was able to move straight to righteous anger. Jesus cheater used to make me feel so guilty for “white lies” —yes, as he was faking business trips to party with hookers. But with him gone, there is nothing to lie about!
p.s. I use the term “hooker” bc these woman didn’t come to the US to service men. They are clearly exploited. The term “sex worker” removes the horror of their lives.
Mine actually somewhat hid things, although I knew some of it, and more came out during the divorce. His attorney was a blabbermouth who despised his client. Not ethical, but there it was.
When I got the contradiction of him choosing low-quality women and claiming they were “so much better” than his spouse appliance, it gave me some space and peace to heal. I decided at that point to let go even further and be glad that I was on my way to saner days.
I was talking to a domestic violence victim last night in the context of my volunteer work, and she asked me when I knew that my marriage was over. It was truly when he left the second time and went on to live life his own way, while very half-heartedly claiming he was working on reconciling with me. It took me a while to articulate and realize that the act of leaving spoke volumes, and that’s OK. A lot of us are that way.