He Says It’s ‘Just Sexting’. Evidence Says Otherwise
Her husband says he’s just been sexting, but the evidence looks like physical cheating. How else do you explain the hidden Viagra prescription?
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Dear Chump Lady,
I found my husband’s sexting conversations with his best friend’s wife.
She’s half his age, and between the conversation and naked videos of her, I am DONE! However Mr. Betrayal says that’s not “cheating” as he claims he they never had sex!
In my book sexting is most definitely cheating! If he’s hiding conversations and videos, knowing it would destroy me, it’s cheating! Your thoughts?
On three occasions I’ve also found Viagra.
The first was a prescription written by his best friend, who is a doctor. It was for 30 pills, 11 were missing when I saw the RX in the medicine cabinet. (We haven’t been sexually active for over 4 years.) They most definitely weren’t used with me!
I have also found “Friday Plans” in pants pocket while doing laundry and today he received a discreet package from “ZipHealth”. All of which he claims he uses to pleasure himself since I’m “not taking care of his needs.” I’ve asked several men if they need Viagra to jack-off and every person (all men) have said they absolutely DO NOT!
My husband has turned all this around, making me the villain and he’s the victim!
Am I crazy?
Please help me clarify who is crazy in this sh*tshow.
Sincerely,
Crazy, Scorned, and Soon To Be Single
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Dear Crazy, Scorned, and Soon To Be Single,
He’s gaslighting you.
You feel crazy because this is deliberate mindf*ckery calculated to make you feel crazy.
He’s trying to hide his abusive power trip by cloaking himself as The Real Victim Here. Don’t be angry! Feel sorry for him. Cease consequences at once! This jujitsu is also known as DARVO — deny, attack, reverse victim/offender.
Of course you’re furious. You aren’t trumping up false charges and unfairly accusing him — you have ACTUAL EVIDENCE that he’s cheating on you.
Mr. Betrayal says that’s not “cheating” as he claims he they never had sex!
Don’t argue about what constitutes cheating. Focus on what is acceptable to you in a relationship.
I call this manipulation “How many cheaters can dance on the head of the pin.” FWs and cheater apologists want to move the battlefield to how we define cheating instead of how this behavior harms the chump. Is sexting cheating? Are d*ck pics cheating? Is surreptitiously holding hands during Bible study cheating? As if this is a jury trial and only after we have met some consensus during evidentiary hearings can we render judgment. (After which there must be immediate forgiveness and asking yourself what you did to make them cheat.)
No. Move the battlefield to IS THIS ACCEPTABLE TO ME?
Ask yourself: Do you feel safe? Respected? Loved? Stop going down rabbit holes. It’s not in your cheater’s best interest to concede he is cheating. That ends the entitlement and brings about ugly consequences.
Only YOU decide if sending naked pictures to your best friend’s wife is a deal breaker. Screw what he thinks. This is YOUR future. YOU are the decider.
Believe the evidence.
On three occasions I’ve also found Viagra.
You don’t need your dick to text. Just opposable thumbs. So yeah, the little blue pills are for real life encounters.
Again, the deception and what looks like unethical pill procurement is enough to nope out. It’s your call if this is acceptable behavior in your marriage.
Am I crazy?
No. You’re being chumped. It’s a curable condition. Remove the cheater.
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I haven’t commented in ages, but this post put me right back in old feelings. He swore up and down that the little blue pills I found over the years were for masterbating, and I was such a dumbass. Even though I trust he sucks, looking back, some part of me still wants to believe it – probably just because it’s preferable to believing I am that gullible or that he lied to my face with such ease.
I haven’t commented in ages either, but this post also brought me back. My ex told me that the Viagra I found was prescribed to him for the “health of his penis” after prostate surgery. Exactly what you said….I actually believed that whopper of a lie because it was preferable to believing that he would lie to my face with such ease.
Mine packed viagra for a work trip. (It really WAS a work trip, but he had free time at night to get up to god knows what) By that point, I was already looking to get out and I never even confronted him about the viagra because I didn’t feel like it mattered. And I did wonder if he would say it was for masturbating, and thought maybe that was actually the case.
How very naive of me.
Dear Crazy, Scorned and Soon to Be Single,Dear Sane, Esteemed and Soon to Be Free,
I noped out on his b.s. at your first sentence. His best friend’s wife?! When you can’t see what he’s doing to you, look at what he’s doing to his other closest relationship. Your STBX has zero character. None, zip, nada. Enjoy the beautiful future that awaits you.
BTDT! the hundreds of hidden viagra pills and the crying raging victim DARVO performances by FW narcopath were breathtaking in their gaslighting audacity. I was ready to believe the most outrageous lies, but I fortunately confided in a couple of friends who pointed out there was no acceptable reason for the pills refilled over and over when we were in by then a nearly 100% sexless marriage.
OP your cheater is a sick twisted jerk who gets a high off of hurting others. Aside from the obvious thrill of hurting you, FW is secretly loving how he’s getting viagra prescriptions from the same man who he’s betraying! Unless the doc friend is a sick John Derek type who loves pimping out his much younger ho-wife. In that case it’s an even more twisted sh*show.
Sadistic.
Secret sexting someone else = cheating. How would he feel if you were sending secret pics of your foof to a much younger guy for lols? The reaction to discovery – gaslighting, deflection and cheating with his FRIEND’S WIFE is a staggering stash of fuckwit declarations of shitty character. As Chump Lady says, nothing to work with. File and get a happy life!
Dear Not Crazy,
The gaslighting and cheating are abuse, full stop. Abuse is crazy-making and intimidating. I imagine you haven’t slept well in months and feel completely disregulated but that still doesn’t make you “crazy.”
Along with consulting with every pit bull divorce attorney in town, I would recommend scraping funds together and hiring a reputable PI to get the smoking gun proof of cheating if just because it can make some of these cheating thugs slightly less contentious or at least a little less righteous about playing victim through the divorce process. It also establishes to legal authorities that they’re chronic liars which can put them on their back foot and give you an advantage. Even if it doesn’t make him less contentious, it might make it harder for him to paint you as “paranoid” or “crazy” when you’ve got photos and videos of him sneaking around with his fellow married trash goblin.
Proof of cheating can also help to track dissipation of assets since the fact that both parties are married suggests use of hotels and it’s likely he was the one paying for this (in other words, you were paying for this). You might also uncover more expensive “sexual basement” habits like hookers, etc. You have a right to get any squandered marital assets back.
And if and when you get the proof, share it with your fellow chump. In the meantime I wish you strength and hope you can find emotional support on the rocky part of the journey to freedom and a far better life free of this backstabbing abuser.
CL is right: move the goalpost from “how is cheating defined” to “whatever this is it isn’t acceptable to me,” whether it’s the cheater manipulating us with “sexting isn’t cheating” or our own denial leading us to hesitate (“Can I really leave him if he’s not really cheating?”). I have seen a similar dynamic at work with those whose spouses aren’t straight. They tie themselves up in knots thinking they can’t end a marriage until they know that their spouse is “really” gay, and not “just bi” or “emotionally committed to me but sexually same-sex attracted.” One wise woman on the Our Path (formerly Straight Spouse Network) forum said she freed herself from this mental torture when she said to herself, “Whatever he is, he’s not for me.” The question here is not “is he technically cheating” but “Do I want to stay married to a man who sexts with his best friend’s wife and orders Viagra behind my back, then attacks me when I object?”
Yes, Mr. Limp Loser is cheating. Send the sad sausage with the sad sausage packing.
Josh, do you need the blue pill for “quiet time”?
Yeah, me neither.
Dear not even slightly Crazy (but absolutely entitled to be entirely p*ssed off),
You are not crazy. Read that again.
I’m guessing that you’ve already had the “It’s not what you think it is” or “It’s not what it looks like” BS/Gaslighting. The plot spoiler is that it is what you think it is and it is what it looks like. If he’s not getting it on with his best friend’s wife, it’s certainly not through a lack of effort on his part … and if he has naked videos of her, then she’s not done anything to shut it down either.
The only person who gets to give you permission to “nope out” of this sordid situation is you and you can do that with a clear conscience.
LFTT
PS. I suspect that your husband way of acting towards his best friend may see his best friend narrowing his social circle in the near future. You might want to let the best friend know.
Forget about the word “cheating”.
Talk instead about “keeping secrets” and “lying.”
Talk about cheating with a cheater or a side piece, or even a lot of people who are not cheaters or side pieces, and you can talk in circles forever about what constitutes cheating.
Keep things simple, clear, and on point by talking about lying and keeping secrets.
He’s interacting sexually with someone else, keeping it a secret, and lying about it.
Case closed.
Completely side steps the pointless moronic moot debate about what cheating is or isn’t.
Secretly sexually interacting with someone, lying = game over.
Love this!
Concise and deadly accurate analysis! 👏but of course the RIC therapists wouldn’t like it if the general public figured this out.
Is he interacting sexually with someone else and keeping it a secret from you? Yes.
Is he lying? Yes.
That’s way more than enough for you to know.
My sincere and heartfelt condolences. Sending a huge hug.
♥️
The law of karma says you get back what you put out into the world; therefore, I feel that people who sext with married cheaters ought to experience having their video forwarded to their mommies, their daddies, their friends and families and most especially, their own spouses. I know we aren’t supposed to do it if it feels good, and we should take the high road, and we shouldn’t fight with pigs – but I also know that even a bunny rabbit will bite if you poke it in the eye with a stick several times. Besides which, why shouldn’t we do it if we feel bad? I sharply recall the first time I found his hidden ED drugs – stashed in his toolbox. I went looking for a screwdriver and discovered his screwing around! After that they were turning up everywhere! When I phoned him in a rage after he left the house with a pocket full of them, he tried to tell me “a guy just wants to wake up with a hard on once in a while”. They don’t work that way, duh. And he really stuttered trying to come up with an excuse when I told him I’d been counting them. In my opinion, even having a secret stash is proof of infidelity.
I shared some pix of encounters with his other betrayal objects. (He had so many) It was awesome. He did the same thing with so many of them. Same bars, road trips,parks, waterfalls, thriftstores, Boat and ferry rides. They were not pleased. Haha
You are brilliant! I absolutely love this!
I’ve struggled with “if it feels good, don’t do it.” I’ve decided that I will no longer keep his secrets that allowed him to control the narrative and abuse me from afar. I am careful with what I say to whom to a degree. But he has benefited from my silence for decades and I am now in a space where I am strong enough to deal with whatever form of fallout comes my way.
Game on!
It’s your story to tell.
Soon after D-Day my cheater ex beat me unconscious, and while I was recuperating, he methodically spun his stories to everyone we knew. Fortunately, I had found physical receipts and was able to show them to a few friends, who were convinced. But I didn’t tell them everything he’d done. I filed for divorce and moved on.
Now we are years out, and I’ve recently learned he’s renewed his overtures to friends who stayed with me, emailing them that there are a lot of things they don’t know about me and misrepresenting me. I have finally started talking about him again.
It feels icky to feel I have to defend myself. Maybe I don’t have to do it, but I hate to leave his lies unchallenged.
Fortunately, this week I found recent court records of multiple arrests, so I can share those facts about him.
For readers here, I suggest checking your cheater’s name in court dockets and with the court records clerk. I’ve found multiple court records that prove he’s not the morally upright and honorable businessman he claims to be.
This brought back bad memories. When I found the sexting(multiple other women, complete with pictures and videos) he tried to tell me that it was not cheating, it was harmless flirting. Adults talk about sex! It was no big deal! He really tried to make me believe that I was too controlling and that I was invading his privacy. And yes there was a hidden Viagra stash as well. Of course he was sleeping with those women, plus many others. This was unacceptable to me, obviously. I’ll never understand why people like him get married and have families.
Yeah, as a single woman, I “talk about s*x” all the time with married, engaged, or committed men. Not hardly!!!
One of the thinking errors that I keep seeing in the Traitor population: they continually operationally redefine simple, fundamental, and key concepts to fit their worldview and behavior. In the cited example-the Traitor in question was found to have a supply of Viagra (which I am not aware has other “black box” uses like other medications-as a male I would like to further indicate that I have never met a male that requires ED medication for um…”happy time.” Ahem) and a paper trail of lewd conduct including video(!) of his best friend’s wife. He denies that there has been betrayal because in his mind, cheating apparently only involves direct physical sexual intercourse.
You are not ok with this. I don’t imagine his “best friend” is aware of or is ok with this, either.
Moreover this individual (I refuse to use the word “man” here) has assigned responsibility for his sexual gratification to you and is “taking it elsewhere” that he is dissatisfied with what he has been receiving-but in the same breath is indicating that he requires “the little blue pill” to see to his own needs.
Speaking as a mental health professional, one of the key identifying criteria for personality disorder is that externalized locus of control-that the things that they do wrong are never their fault and are justified-usually with no reflection on agreements, laws, or social norms. In the parlance of AA/NA-their lives are unmanageable though they do not accept it and they have deferred responsibility to everything that is “not them.”
Further to my experience as a mental health professional-you are not crazy. That said given the conduct of your significant other I have illustrated above, it is easy to infer that he would very much like for you to be to justify his continued poor judgment.
I am sorry.
My own Traitor pulled the same cards-DARVO, rationalization based on a convenient redefinition of terms, outright dishonesty, and a very flimsy explanation when I found receipts and tangible evidence(that was of course paired with “let me explain how you are simultaneously wrong, overreacting, and how this is actually your fault.”) And it’s horrible. We loved these people. We trusted them more than anybody could or should ever be trusted. It is that same love and trust that is being exploited.
As a final, personal aside, I have always found it very curious that anybody would ever cheat with the significant other of a friend. Perhaps I simply construct friendship very differently-that is not the kind of disrespect that I would pay to a friend-particularly if I were trying to be secretive about something (“Loose lips sink ships” and all-though my efforts to understand the “logic” of disordered people continues to be my undoing). There is a certain…danger on the instinctual level of attempting to take another person’s mate. I was recently reminded that on a certain other infidelity support website (I believe there is a number in its name?) that there is an entire subforum dedicated to…such fantasies.
Have a Mighty Monday!
Lack of accountability…it’s always somebody else’s fault.
Interestingly I was just watching a video by Dr. Ramani Durvasula and she basically said something similar, that THE calling card of a NPD person is lack accountability or refusing responsibility.
When I was cutting my teeth in this field 20 odd years ago now that was one of the first things I learned about the personality disorder spectrum-the externalized locus of control(and by extension an overall lack of ownership and accountability for ones thoughts, emotions, and ultimately, behaviors/actions.) “I did this because somebody else _________.” Not “I made the best educated decision I could possibly make given my lived experience and available information.”
In a way it’s kind of sad-these “people”(and I use that term loosely) seem to just sort of…let life happen to them passively. No actual achievement in that regard, either. Just reacting to a series of stimuli. No free will at all.
You wrote, “I have always found it very curious that anybody would ever cheat with the significant other of a friend.”
Hmm, this is something I’ve mulled on a lot because that theme cropped up in FW’s confessions during the RIC debacle. It doesn’t really surprise me since some cheaters seem to be combo cheater/mate poachers– in other words, they prefer cheating with someone they know to be married or in a long term relationship as well.
What’s up with that? For some FWs it’s obviously about convenience since a married affair partner might be less likely to demand commitment. But something I learned during the “full disclosure” part of RIC is that FW in my case had a history of poaching the girlfriends or fiances of guys he knew in college (even his best friend). True to form, once he decided to step out on the marriage, all of his prospective “targets” (according to three polygraphs, he was kind of a loser as a cheater and kept getting rebuffed) turned out to be either married or engaged as well, including the one that finally agreed to have an affair.
Having read FW’s college diaries, I figured out in retrospect that choosing “taken” girls back then wasn’t just about convenience because he only became creepily obsessed with the ones who were spoken for. So my guess is that his poaching was partly about dominating, one-upping and punishing other men.
So… daddy issues? He certainly had those. Then the fact that a woman’s “stock value” could only be conferred by whomever “owned” her kind of argues that the most insulting part of his misogyny is that women are really just footballs in his endless imagined competition against other men.
Then again, FW’s fixation on taken women seemed to go beyond that since the ones he pursued both in college and during the marriage were all uncanny dead ringers for his toxic mother who was– tada– a serial emotional cheater throughout her own marriage.
The resemblances went beyond just serial infidelity and might solve the mystery of why FW– a self-proclaimed egalitarian lefty agnostic intellechull who secretly thought he was Alpha Chad (found those diary entries as well)– would get these bizarre fixations on downright homely J*sus cheaters with mean streaks, internalized misogyny, stumpy limbs and weirdly wide jaws (swollen parotid glands from chronic bulimia– also like his mother) yet devalued and cheated on each of his relatively normal, healthy partners.
I think I fall in the latter category and that seemed to be another part of FW’s overall pattern: getting burned by mommy doppelgangers and then “balming his wounds” with some unsuspecting normie chump until he started feeling stifled and found another mommy-doppelganger. Rinse repeat.
Go figure. You’re the social science professional so maybe there’s something to chew on regarding combo cheater/poachers also having combo mommy/daddy issues?
Without waxing too Freudian, I would tend to agree that there is some “early attachment” stuff going on. One way or another these “people”(again, I use that term loosely) were programmed to engage in those behaviors. Whether he was imprinted on his mother or what is hard to say without more data. I’d be curious if he grew up in an overly permissive if negligent environment.
In your cited example, I’m not just seeing “I need to dominate other people either by stealing what is precious from them or otherwise demonstrating no regard for their wellbeing in favor of my own gratification”(good catch, by the way!), I’m also seeing “my relationships are ephemeral so rather than putting in the work to build something I want to rent something ready-made and turn it back in when I’m tired of it/it becomes too much work/I’m exposed.”
The fact that people just don’t want to put in the work, build something, and get right to the good parts. The grind through the rough parts is supposed to be part of the process. Kids these days.
“Only wanting the good parts” seems to be a pretty dominant Traitor trait (ooh, that’s marketable…I’m keeping that!) Someone that has been “vouched for” seems to make stock trade higher-there just doesn’t seem to be that part of the classic Super Ego that says “this person is off limits” in the Traitor population. I never, NEVER had more women approach me than when I was most secure in my “marriage”.
The larger point I was speaking to comes from my lived experience as a Chump. In hindsight it was fascinating-just how Discovery Channel my brain went when I found out that there was someone very local she was cheating with. I wonder if that isn’t part of the thrill of it, knowing that they run the risk of getting “opted out” (just like in the nature where there is apparently no monogamy…cretins…) for invading territory.
Thanks for the experienced insights. Yes indeed, FW’s parents were that lethal mix of negligently permissive and coercively controlling at the same time, not to mention emotionally incestuous.
I can only say that I have encountered the female version of the mate-poacher subhuman species you describe. It’s a toxic power move against the chumped woman.
FW narcopath DDay #1 involved a homely OW who instantly glommed onto him when he became “taken” as in committed to me, but not when he was single and available before.
At university I knew a pair of sisters who made sport of seducing “taken” guys and shared their tactics for doing so. Their father was a FW. Blarrrrgghh
I have to laugh at your “Blarrrgghh.” Yes, I’ve known people like this and have to agree that that mentality is really sad, pathetic and loserish.
Hello all! I’m the “Crazy Scorned” who’s living thru all of the above bullshit! The best friend (also my friend) was notified within a few days of my discovery…he broke off his bromance with my POS husband for about a week. Their bromance is back on, stronger than ever! Apparently Dr. Dumbass has no morals either!!!
I greatly appreciate all of the support from this group, so happy I stumbled upon it! 🩷
Dr. Dumbass probably planned to cheat on his trash goblin wife once she passed a certain expiration date which is why he can’t bring himself to condemn his back-stabbing cheater bestie.
But just because you’re currently outnumbered by trash goblins who probably deserve every bit of abuse they get from their fellow trash goblins doesn’t mean that you do. You’re not like them and deserve better. Furthermore, it’s actually not that hard to be decent and it’s not an unrealistic goal to imagine that you will one day be safe and valued by people in your own ethical “tribe.”
Kinda like “we’re just really good friends.” Deflection and distraction meant to get the mental wheels spinning in a correctly wired human being. You know, those of us who are plagued with the ability to self reflect and feel empathy. Maybe if we put ourselves in their position it would make sense. Nope! It won’t because their intent is to manipulate and decieve.
My ExHC had severe ED for years. It took so long over an hour sometimes of me trying to be a wife. Abusive by the way, and degrading.He took pills occasionally but said they affected his health so that was out.. All of a sudden a new RX ….but he was using them somewhere? Yes with others. But I GOT BLAMED FOR HIS ED? Shows you how low. It was not acceptable but I stayed –BELIEVING I was the only cure… being his wife- the ONLY WOMAN IN HIS LIFE.Well you are never the only one and being physically punished for his disorder was past the point of endurance. What wasn’t acceptable became acceptable. I don’t know how you get boiled like a frog, but I sure did.
When ED strikes, they always blame the wife. They might have a 40 pack year smoking history, insulin dependent diabetes, and morbid obesity – but it is always the fault of the wife.
It’s not cheating? So why was he hiding it?
Of course it’s cheating.
Viagra. I now view it as a red flag. I was with a cheater. I didn’t understand at the time that I was being chumped, but he had “left his wife” and I found a stockpile of samples. He was a doctor and said “ I don’t need it with you.” Complete lie. When my recent ex announced he had gotten an Rx I was like, “why”, I thought we had a nice time in the sack without it. After the first pill, it clicked— viagra might have its place in some relationships, but I recognized immediately that the good doctor was definitely taking the samples. Viagra is like drinking gallons of skim milk at a time and feeling icky afterwards. I’d rather have a pint of satisfying heavy whipping cream and get a good night’s sleep! Just saying.