Hiking the Appalachian Trail and Other Affair Euphemisms
Dear Chump Lady,
I just watched “United States of Scandal”, (a CNN series about political scandals.) The second episode in the series is about Mark Sanford, hosted by Jake Tapper on CNN. You could have a field day with it . . .
What struck me was Tapper’s sincere shock and dismay that his friend, Mark Sanford, cheated on wife Jenny — in large part because Tapper had seen so many politicians fall to the same cheating fate. In other words, how could his friend be so stupid as the other politicians. I was practically screaming at the screen, “Hello?!? It’s not just about politicians, it’s people who perceive themselves as powerful or entitled!”
And what struck me as sweet was Tapper’s disbelief and sadness about being let down by his friend cheating on his wife. But again, I was practically screaming at the screen. “Hello?!? The cheater’s narrative is that we should all be happy because they are finally happy. Haven’t you seen this all before? Twu wuv?” Dang, I want Tapper’s innocence because mine was killed long ago.
There were many clips of comedians and how “hiking the Appalachian Trail”, because Sanford disappeared over Father’s Day weekend and that’s what his staff came up with, became code for having an affair. This euphemism might be a good Friday challenge.
Dudette
***
Dear Dudette,
I accept the Friday Challenge so long as we keep it to euphemisms and don’t get into politics. As much as I enjoy snarking about family values politicians and their wandering dicks. (Love me a Jesus Cheater.)
But I’m sure Chump Nation got a lot of creative excuses as to where they were, and with whom. Mine was (as I told the story many times here) “sleeping in his car.” In Vermont. In JANUARY.
It might have well have been the Appalachian Trail. So, CN — tell us, what’s your new euphemism for where your cheater was — and where were they really?
Dusting the bunny slopes (with a Schmoopie)?
Hitting the gym (trainer)?
Bible study (with a Jesus cheater)?
TGIF!
“I’m off to see a bereavement counsellor, I’m taking 80 quid from our joint account because they only accept cash”….. He’d be gone for over 4 hours every Wednesday evening…. During LOCKDOWN! Oh my days I was so gullible 🤦🏻♀️
“I’m going to go wire my cousins/aunts/uncles/friends/house” despite him hating to do home electrician work (he’s an electrical engineer). I wondered why but I just wasn’t suspicious enough. And because he managed to eventually isolate me enough from my girlfriends & family (he sneered at them all), I just didn’t have anyone to mention this to like a girlfriend who might have given me the heads up “hey, maybe he’s cheating?!”. I firmly believe any one of them might have clued me in. That’s why I know my cheater is abusive – without it having been a physical one – because isolating victims is also one of their trademarks.
When enforcing one-sided monogamy– or coercive control or battering for that matter– one can’t perform proper perspecticide if the victim has supporters and sounding boards.
I knew something was up when one of my closest friends didn’t invite me to her baby shower. Sure, I was up to my neck in kidlets and honestly couldn’t have traveled to the Caribbean for the event but I also didn’t recognize any of the people invited. They were all “new” friends. I put that together with the unsettling look her husband had given me at their wedding. It’s really hard to explain– his gaze was sort of empty but also a strange mix of both feral and tragic, like a possum peering up from the bottom of a well. Like, oh poor sad creature needs rescuing… but, eek, if I reach down there to save it I probably won’t get my hand back.
The read I got was that this guy had a secret and instinctively didn’t like anyone who might be loyal to his prey, give her feedback and support and a net to fall into if she had to escape him. But immediately following the wedding, this friend suddenly became difficult to reach so there was never much chance to sound her out. Then I felt hurt and baffled by it and stopped reaching out as much myself. I started rolling my eyes a bit and scrolling past all her social media travel photos and curated lifestyle pix.
After she discovered his affair with the au pere and hooker and cam-girl habits, she admitted that the FW, aside from arranging this curated life she seemed to lead, basically curated her friends from the beginning by making cutting observations and snooty comments. But I remembered the mean-spirited dorks from the groom side of the wedding and couldn’t figure out what this guy’s snobbery could be biased on other than borrowed associations like his university or, say, once being seated next to someone almost famous at a banquet. Even calling him “rich” by NY standards would be a stretch. He boasted about his Manhattan loft but, in reality, it was only half a floor of a narrow building, dark, low ceilings, etc. Plus he was so nondiscript that, sort of like Elon Musk, I could never seem to recall his drab face. Meanwhile my friend is not only drop-dead, she’s brilliantly funny, charitable, a great mom, etc.
What emerged after this friend’s D-day is that the cracks this ass made about her friends were all actually veiled cracks about her that wore her down to the point that, in order to be spared the covert cuts, she avoided the friends whose presence seemed to bring on the slashing. I told her she was like Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby who’s gradually isolated until she’s surrounded only by Satanists (FW’s tacky, second-rate shill corporate law friends).
I lived in a small remote community where almost everyone there was related to each other, or otherwise was socially entangled with them. Not only did my X lie to me about everything, but so did the village. EVERYONE knew he was fucking me over in every way that he could, and they all stayed silent and watched him do it.
Mine was strangling me to death right on the highway, and no one stopped to help. I woke up on the highway with the clothes on my back and my dog, and still no one stopped to help. People are awful!
Unfortunately, I’ve seen this throughout life in different ways – most people are cowards. There have been many occasions in life where I’ve stepped up and said or done something – it could be about a bad situation at a job or in my neighborhood or whatever, AND NO ONE ELSE SAYS OR DOES ANYTHING OR SUPPORTS ME. But then later on they creep up to me and thank me for saying something. Well….where the HELL WERE YOU? People need to develop some spines. I emphasize this because I don’t think this was personal to you, it’s just that….people are cowards in general and no one wants to stand out. They’re afraid of saying or doing the “wrong” thing or making it worse or sticking their heads up and maybe getting attacked.
So many people have plenty to say after the fact, but go quiet when it really matters.
I personally don’t understand it and think it’s some sort of self preservation learned behaviour in some cases- others are just cowards with no backbone.
Why wouldn’t you speak up for others?
I have to agree with you, Mehitable. Most people will stick their heads in the sand. In fact, I would have to admit being guilty of this when I was very young, but I haven’t been that way for years. About 30 years ago, I had a girlfriend who was moving ‘back’ and her husband was following behind a few months later. As soon as she left, I watched him hang out with a 19-year-old at the bar very regularly. I guess when the cat’s away,… In any event, I knew that I would want to know if it was me and my husband was being seen with an OW. So I called her up and told her. She was devastated and didn’t want to believe. I was devastated to be the one to tell her (even though there were many others that had seen it as well). Eventually, they divorced and she’s still single to this day (55 years old). What is really sad is she still follows that dick on social media and laments it all. She never moved on. When I was going through my DDay, nobody let me know and I’m positive that the dick’s colleagues (both men and women) all knew about him and his skank. It’s unfortunate, but most people to this day will keep their mouths shut over any lack of integrity because they’re “minding their own business”. I’ve decided that as long as my life is not in immediate danger (as in someone holding a gun to my head and threatening me not to tell), then if I am witness to a wrong, I will stand up and expose it. I cannot tell you just how far I’d go to expose a wrong (like I doubt I’d call the IRS on somebody that I knew cheated on his taxes), but I know that I would expose an adulterous relationship, and I know I’d step in if someone was abusing a spouse or child (or animal). In my mind, people can abuse their own selves and their own bodies, but they are not allowed to abuse another human being (or animal.)
That’s horrifying. People suck.
This is so hurtful. I had my church go that way, but I still had some supporters. It is so hard to lose a village….awwwwww!!!!!
I believe all of his “business trips” were really just with AP coworker. And FW had to have evening “international conference calls” at AP coworker’s house so they could be on the call together.
This is one of the reasons I am so unsympathetic to XW’s demands that I rearrange the custody schedule to accommodate her work trips. As far as I’m concerned, since she used her job as cover for her affair I don’t consider her “work trips” to be sacrosanct. She’s perpetually pissed off and tells me I don’t “support her career”.
I imagine some of them really are just innocent work tips, but considering that I wasn’t able to figure which were legit and which weren’t while we were married, there’s no way I’d be able to figure it out now (nor do I want to get that involved in her schedule). So I just assume that she’s probably lying but – since I have a strict policy that I won’t say “no” just to spite her – I decide based on what’s best for me and the kids and ignore the purported reason. (As I’ve mentioned before, I once told her that she didn’t need to tell me why she was traveling since I didn’t make any decisions based on that, and she responded that she had the right to tell me anything she thought I needed to know and that I couldn’t prevent her from giving me whatever details about her life she believed were relevant.)
I was kind of in the same boat. My xH used his work trips to Montreal and Ottawa as a cover for his secret trysts. I cannot be sure how many of them were legit – likely some legitimate business was conducted on those trips – but I suspect many evenings at the hotel were fuckfests.
In fact, I remember the evening I was elected president of a charitable organization. He was on a business trip to Montreal. He called me after the AGM to congratulate me. How sweet. He remembered what was going on in my life – even though he was away on important business.
l would learn a bit later that 2 of his fuck buddies were in the hotel room as he made that telephone call to me. His 2 fuck buddies knew everything about me. Dear xH even shared photos of me with them. I was never told their real names. Always an asymmetric power imbalance with that one.
Every intimate moment and occasion of life was polluted by his betrayals big and small.
I just feel this pain so much when I read these threads and see how much I wanted to believe I was truly loved. I was of use, but never truly loved. Sad
Yes- same here.
The theatrics and emoting of undying love continued right up until the day he ghosted.
Bullshit all of it.
Yes, It’s sad. For every goal I achieved he was sure to sabotage all my hard work.
He was: “At work”.
FW was quite the busy bee on his phone at work. Also claimed that he was visiting his elderly parents and used his mother’s repeated hospitalizations as a way to facetime and send gross selfies and messages to his fellow freak, who didn’t live in the area.
Mine was “visiting a sick friend”. He was having a more intimate visit with the friend’s wife. And when the friend died, the widow required a great deal of support in areas where FW suddenly had skills such as boat launching and water heater repair.
That is truly vile. POS will have something coming to him in the next world if not this one.
I have to agree with you again, Mehitable. I firmly believe we all will be held accountable for the wrongs that we did in this world. And I firmly believe that all the anguish that we caused others in this world, we will feel every single bit of it in the next world.
Omg! That is next level depravity. May karma / the universe deal with them both appropriately.
Klootzak went on a hike in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. Left his wedding band in the car (so it wouldn’t get damaged while hiking!) and took a backpack with a book in it to read “when (he) found a spot to do so.” I would not have known except thieves broke into his car and gutted it while he was hiking. It was totalled. He had to call me at my work to take off and come give him a ride to follow his car being towed to a shop. His dream car was in ruins. One would have thought that would have been a sign to him to quit, but no.
Then it was making a “trip to Home Depot and to run errands.” He would be gone for 4 hours every week. Sometimes more. Except I wasn’t seeing any amazing house projects resulting from these trips. He was actually buying things but this was during the pandemic and I think he either out in an online order to pick up or shopped quickly and then spent the rest of the time at the hotel on the same street. There were also “networking meetings” at the hotel which he had to attend as he was looking for a job. Then he got a job (NOT through those “networking meetings” – shocker!) and always had to drive 4 hours away for “meetings.”
That’s bold….
How many other hikers/outdoors people do you know that have had their car not just robbed but “gutted” as a random act?
What are the chances it was a former Schmoopie or husband.
No, this was in Hawaii. It happened all the time. The locals regularly called those parking lots “the bank” and sought out cars with out of state plates as they were always military. Military on island would get big bonuses for going in deployments or doing hazardous duty and would spend it on fabulous cars. Parking your car at a trail head was begging for it to be stripped. Local police didn’t do much about it because tourism was not impacted. The tourists drove rental cars with Hawaii plates.
Oh, wow! I was stationed in Bavaria, where we used to joke that if you left your keys in your car, someone would hide them under your seat for you rather than steal the car. Poverty sucks I guess, even if it’s not happening to you.
Well even if it wasn’t a Schmoopie, I’m going to chalk it up to karma!
Oh and the dream career thing, FW had a custom BMW factory built when we got back from deployment. Little did we Chumps know, they were treating themselves to whatever and whoever they wanted!
My FW used to say, “What goes TDY, stays TDY.” I’d chastise him about it, but I finally realized that he obviously lived it. (And for those who don’t know what TDY means, it means “Temporary Duty”.)
Gross, I’ve never heard that one. FW was on TDY during the incident that resulted in DDay.
I definitely ran him through the ringer for fucking around in the government hotel on the government’s dime, being a poor example of an officer, and impacting mission readiness (she was a married SM too). He thinks he’s such a patriot and hero. Hah!
Oh and that relates back to the challenge!! He was so busy, 12 hour shifts boo hoo, and he just couldn’t even find time to Skype with the kids. Either he was pulling duty naked, or he had plenty of free time…
“Choir Practise.”
Now Ex-Mrs LFTT told me that she had joined a choir and that practises were on a Thursday PM and performances or more practises were on a Sunday. So I turned myself inside out to make sure that I was always available to look after the kids while she participated in her new hobby.
Only it turns out that Thursday night was “date night” with her AP and Sundays was “days out” with her AP ….. it never occurred to me that something was up, as your don’t expect your wife to be dating her old boyfriends do you?
LFTT
Church Cheaters are the worst.
M,
While I’m not a fan of hypocrisy – which is at the heart the issue I have with religious Cheaters – I think that Cheaters that don’t clear their search history (“What should a middle aged woman wear on a first date?” or “How to have an affair and get away with it?”) on devices used by their children are worse. I also think that Cheaters whose phone is synched to the device their children use, enabling the children (then 11, 16 and 18) to see the full extent of the messages sent between themselves and their AP are worse. As are those who do these things – and others – and then lie to their husbands and children about it when confronted with the evidence.
But then I would say that wouldn’t I?
LFTT
That is horrible, but I’m glad (in a way) that it was your own children that found out. Most children would not believe that of their own mom if you were to tell them what had been happening. They would wonder if you were the liar. In the manner that they found out, there was no chance ex Mrs. LFTT was going to get away with lying to them. It is very sad for them, but I’m so glad they have a great father!
AC,
You are too kind.
I’m sad to say that our children had the measure of Ex-Mrs LFTT well before I did. Our youngest (then 11) had suspected that she was having an affair for at least 6 months before it all came out …. and the reason that they told me rather than confronting her themselves was that they knew that she would lie about it.
LFTT
“riding around with one of the guys”. It was always about ten to 3am.
Yes I was just that stupid, at least until the last year.
I wonder if “riding around with one of the guys” worked with o-whore. Bet he had to come up with a new one. She was evidently smarter than me, she caught him, at least a couple times.
She wasn’t smarter, she just had information that you didn’t.
True, she defiantly had way more street smarts than I did, and she knew where the cheaters picked up their whores.
Her excuse was: “At Sunday brunch”
Setting: In the evenings, after a long day of his working at an out of state event.
Euphemism: “Hanging at the Gaylord.”
Reality: Waiting at the bar at the Gaylord (Texan Station) for the dial-a-prostitute to arrive. So they can have dinner together before strolling to a hotel room. Repeat this scenario with locations all over USA for 20+ years.
Awwww…so harsh. A habit is a habit. For me it is European chocolate.
Also, “Heading to my (hotel) room with my takeout to watch tv.”
He went to Spain every summer for 4-8 weeks to visit his old tios and tias who are all “so old they are dropping like flies”. Perfect cover because he would “try” to get me to bring out little boys along and act offended when I didn’t want to drag them all over Spain for weeks, paying pet sitters at home and missing their camps and activities, etc. (A one-week trip to Spain, which was more logistically possible for us, was out of the question according to him). The one I caught him on was when he said he was staying in the Canary Islands with his cousin for an extra week to see this supposed spectacular meteor shower. He was actually staying to spend a week vacation with his latest whore, and never even saw the meteor shower. Meanwhile I was home dealing with our sick child who had a superbug version of strep throat and was having allergic reactions to the antibiotics.
I’m so sorry – what an absolute FW. The allergic reaction to antibiotics happened to my son too. Who knows where his father was. I don’t even remember where he was supposed to be. I was too busy doing everything to track his wandering dick. I bet you too 😢
Selfish, selfish, selfish. They’re selfish to the core.
There are low life’s and then it goes down from there👇⏬️⬇️
It was like watching a 4-year old trying to deny breaking a dish . . .
“Well, um . . . you know how, um . . . how sometimes you’re driving on the highway, and then , um . . . you zone out? Like you don’t even see the road in front of you? And before you know it you’re, like, 20 miles away? And you have no memory of driving that distance? Well, I was on my way to the cinema, and, um . . . and I started thinking about things, and my mind started wandering, and, um . . . well, before I knew it, I was almost in Boston! And, well, by that time, I didn’t really feel like going to the movies anymore, so, um . . . so I just figured I’d keep driving around, sort of, um . . . you know, think about us and everything that’s been going through lately. And then I stopped to get a fountain Coke, and, um . . . and it was actually kind of nice, having that time to myself. And, um . . . and then I just decided to come home.”
(Pause to gauge my facial reaction) “WHAT?? . . . OKAY, FINE!! Believe what you want!! I don’t care anymore!! . . .”
Henceforth known as “Vehicular Catatonia.”
After D-day I was told she was only meeting her “just friend” to watch movies on his couch.🤦♀️
I’ll always wonder about the time that he said he was literally hiking the Appalachian Trail. Seriously. He packed up a bunch of hiking gear. I helped him with his food supplies. God knows what he was really doing.
All I know for certain is that he has cheated on the second wife, too. And that’s more than I need to know.
When mine said he wanted to go hiking by himself, which was 100% uncharacteristic of this man who could never be alone, I went to REI with him and tried to get him to buy a GPS tracker device because I was worried about solo hiking. He got pissed.
Of course, CN, he had NO intention of hiking in VT by himself. 😡
They’re so unoriginal. He met up with the AP in a different stop. Flew there with cash (or at least that’s what he later would tell me). And, yes, they did hike apparently. So glad I helped him buy supplies (minus the Garmin) for his hiking tryst. Geezus. They have no shame.
He was a lorry driver. He would load the lorry the night before so he could get an early start. This part is legit.
‘I need to sleep near the lorry overnight as it’s fully loaded with materials and I can protect it’
Please bear in mind that the lorry was parked in a top security facility…alarms camera’s etc.
He did sleepover..what I didn’t know was who was underneath him when doing so.
I was so naive and would feel so bad that I was at home in a comfortable bed and he wasn’t. D’oh
Oh, this! Feeling guilty about their sleeping arrangements. 😡
Supposedly whenever FW wasn’t traveling (maybe half the time) he was sleeping weeknights on an air mattress in his office about 2 hours away. For four years.
OF COURSE he wasn’t. But even when he couldn’t come home for a few weeks, and I volunteered to bring the kids to see him (which I had done a couple years prior before he was full time) and he said no, I didn’t question it. So stupid.
I still don’t know whether he was just spending money on a place to stay and didn’t want to tell me, or whether he had a local whore in addition to his travel size one. Who cares. I don’t feel bad for him for anything anymore.
You can fit affairs into any career choice. All that is needed is imagination.
We went to his brother’s wedding. I asked if he wanted to hang out afterwards. He said no, he was too tired…
He went to go hang out with ex/OW. They “got a pizza” together, was the story I heard. Not sure that it became a widely used euphemism between the pair, but there ya go.
Four day fishing tournaments. They were always in remote locations so his phone had bad reception. I might get two quick calls. And needless to say he never won anything. Spoiler alert: he was vacationing with other women.
My FW would “spend the night with her mom”. Sometimes it was just to visit, once it was that she was having trouble with her tv, sometimes she just didn’t feel well.
And I bought it completely, what was wrong with helping her mom out… right.
Yep, FW said he was visiting his parents and his mother when she was hospitalized. Found out later from them and another relative that he’d rarely visited them.
This is one of the worst parts of betrayal, that they take advantage of your trust for them. So sorry! We have all dealt with the lies and deception and it sucks!
That’s exactly it. We choose to trust them, because that’s what a good partner does.
Pearls before swine, and all that.
Yes. It is like an all you can eat shit sandwich buffet
The lies… chomp chomp chomp
The gaslighting… chomp chomp chomp
The projecting… chomp chomp chomp
Taking advantage of our complete trust… chomp chomp chomp
The betrayal… chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp
I was 1,000,000% oblivious. I trusted her, and would never do any of those things to her, so I assumed she felt the same. I guess the old saying is right about when you “ass-u-me” something. Pretty shitty way to find out though.
“When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me”.
The foundation of a good lie is a plausible truth. We trusted these people because we love them and we’re supposed to trust them. It’s part of that whole “victimization” thing-they took advantage of our vulnerability. We only caught on when they got erratic, got caught in lies, do the “oh, um….” when questioned on certain things.
My FW was a driver part time, and he would say “My trip got cancelled.” and then claim to go to the airport to be waiting on the next trip. That of course, was a lie, he would go to the OW apartment. And of course, they never had sex…just talked. Right…
So mine is “My trip got cancelled.” lol
Mine would go to Home Depot every damn weekend. He’d be gone for hours, and wouldn’t come home with anything from Home Depot and I knew something was wrong, but I spackle spackle spackled it. I don’t know what was wrong with my brain back then.
You were trying to make the best of a shit relationship, and trusting your partner, as a good partner does. You were doing the “right” things, just on the wrong person.
I like that: “doing the right things but for the wrong person.” So true.
Meeting his buddy, Brian, for lunch. But mostly, he’d just disappear for a few hours. I was so used to it, I didn’t ask where he had been. Looking back, I enjoyed him being out of the house so I didn’t have to listen to him beating off to porn.
Ooooh, I get that. Near the end of the relationship, ex/FW would storm out of the house, giving me the silent treatment. He’d be gone for a couple hours and return with ice cream (a 15 minute round trip from our apartment). Still have no clue where he went, but at that point, the more time away, the better.
My cheater was “going for a massage” – for his bad back after a back operation – at Asian Massage Parlors because their massages were reasonably priced. He threw me off joking about turning down offers for Happy Endings. He talked about the legitimate part of the massage to focus my attention there. He almost always complained that he didn’t get a good massage. They didn’t massage his back enough. Or, they used their elbows. As though he were sharing his whole experience. However, he would sometimes say “mass’-age”oddly with the “a” like “cat” with emphasis on the first syllable. Upon discovery of his burner phone, he copped only to hand jobs, even though he knew I found condoms. Surely I must have known… No. I. Did. Not. I didn’t even suspect he was getting hand jobs!
Any single moment is an opportunity to engage with a target. Predators make use of all settings to look for the next. Transparency is an illusion. Limited will use any public space to play a victim who needs rescuing. It’s a skill and lifestyle.
THIS.
I believe it was Dr. Martha Stout (author of “The Sociopath Next Door”) who said the #1 red flag of a dangerous person is sob stories.
I no longer trust adults who need rescuing. Now I find it repulsive.
I think the special one has realized the cracks in the narrative. I had told her to enjoy it while she believed it. She’s invested 10 years and reportedly nothing makes her happy.
Nothing ever makes them happy, yet they rarely seem to realize they’re the only common denominator in their misery.
The stupidity is honestly baffling.
Yep, they never will realize that they are the common denominator. He is not my problem anymore!
Thats because they are focused outwards instead of inwards. No introspection, so they wont realize its themselves. Sad sausages.
I agree. I know about one AP, and I found texts with my ex talking to one of her girlfriends about meeting up with a coworker of theirs. She used the cute heart eye emojis 🤮
When I asked her about both after D-Day, she just said they flirted with her and made her feel special. I told her I guess I was lucky more guys didn’t flirt with her during our 31 year marriage.
I got no euphemisms, no crazy stories, nothing suspicious. He was busy with work and errands, but not so much that it raised alarms. He even asked me to move to his city to be with him. That’s how normal he acted.
I later found out he had a fiancee the whole time. I knew him for 2 years and he never mentioned a fiancee once in that time and portrayed himself as single. The resulting trauma lasted a decade.
I don’t know how he thought that was going to work with me moving across the country. In hindsight, he clearly expected me to uproot my life for his convenience but never actually said anything about moving in with him, which I now find hilarious because it’s so ridiculously self-centered.
Did you move? That should be a jail sentence for him if he did that to an unsuspecting person.
But sadly, there is no punishment for them, and it is very common. Married or not. I mean my H gladly let me put my life on hold to help him get what he wanted and the minute he secured it he started the year of discard. I actually think his plan was to get to increasingly nasty to me that I would leave him and then he could drag the whore out of the alley as a fresh squeeze. Unfortunately for him someone filed an ethics complaint and well he hit the cement like a boulder.
“I got no euphemisms, no crazy stories, nothing suspicious. ”
It was that way for me, even the riding around with the guys sounded Kosher, because he had done that from time to time for years. Likely when he was also cheating, just not yet in the exit adultery with ho worker.
Of course as the year of discard moved on it became worse and started to become suspicious.
Sounds like he got at least some comeuppance. I’m glad. How are you doing now?
I did NOT move, thank God! I had enough sense that moving wouldn’t be good for me, and in any case, he cheated and dumped me over email only a week or two later.
Oh I am great now. I came upon CN a few years ago when he and his wife started treating our son like crap. I started googling narcissist info and voila up popped CN.
My situation happened long before CN or even internet. I got through it ok, though I wish I had been meaner.
I stay to maybe help in some small way, and I learn so much from all these smart women. (and men)
Honestly when I read in the paper that he had been demoted, it put a little pep in my step for a couple days, but for the most part I never thought of him for many years, I was too busy going to school and rebuilding.
When my son let me know what was going on, it really pissed me off.
My son and his family are fine too, they handled it well.
Glad to hear it! Best wishes to you and your family.
Oh and this isn’t a common one he used, in fact he used it only once. He left on a Friday saying that he had a work conference in Layfette IN and he and his direct report had to go. (she was the dog catcher and he was her boss).
I didn’t think a thing about it, but in hindsight how many work conferences happen over a weekend? I suspect they had quite the weekend. I still wish I had run into someone who could have dispelled that lie in real time. But, my life was set up to rarely if ever see his coworkers unless he was there.
To be honest it never occurred to me to question it to anyone, that is how much confidence I had in him.
Yes they like to keep their work where they have various schmoopies and home life completely separate. They dont want us to interact with any colleagues. The colleagues will then say oh i met X wife she is so nice and pretty and smart, ect. Then schmoopie might question them. I thought you said your wife was a nasty bitch who let herself go!
Looks like she’s good at her job.
Ahh ha ha, for sure. If anyone deserved him she did.
It just amazes me that he would shit on a wonderful wife like you obviously were (I have read so many posts by you I can see it) for….the dog catcher. She probably had a lot in common with her clients. I don’t think dog catchers have to go to a lot of conferences though.
Thank you, I wasn’t perfect for sure, but yes I was very good to him.
I know that and so did he.
Walking the bridge
Washing the car
Going to get groceries
Getting his hair cut — Cum Bucket WAS the OW, so at least that one was a partial truth…
“Helping a friend with a concert.”
This wasn’t even a very creative euphemism. I think he didn’t realize that I knew the OW was the lead singer in a band.
She is just a friend.
Very cliche!
“Doing stuff from our jamboard.” Which I guess was a thing on Google? When I went to ask her to start one with me I got the cold shoulder.
Others:
“I’m going to a protest”(which wasn’t all she did)
“I’m visiting a friend in DC”(which wasn’t all she did).
All this for CAKE! And more cake. Wife plus ➕️ ➕️ plus! The more kinds of cake the better!! My first cheater was AT THE 🏋️♀️ GYM!Golds gym to be exact. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and on weekends while I worked. I had to put my son in daycare while I worked on weekends (Dayshift )because cheater was at the gym. Paid for daycare and believed cheater needed down time??? He never looked better
…gave me a D day, divorced me to live with his twoo..luv..and gained 150 pounds. I kid you not. That was a worm on a hook. 🪱🪝..OW got a gym rat and found out she had to cook to keep him happy! She got my cheater and is still with him. But I was done anyway.
Cheater #2 was getting massages for his bad neck and told me how horrible most massage people were. Me? Never guessed it. Nope. Blue ribbon chump. Hikes in the mountains, going running, …I know kids who’s dad never returned after going for alcohol or cigarettes. Nothing new under the 🌞
He wasn’t creative. I got the standard issue “out with the guys” and “working late.” He did work a lot, and did go out with his buddies a lot, so the excuses were believable.
My exH would go away for a week or a weekend, over Covid, to supposedly visit his father, who was dying of cancer. I fully supported and encouraged this, as I’d lost my mom at a young age.
Turns out he was taking his 30-years younger, direct-report schmoopie to our family vacation spots. Just wow.
I’m amazed and appalled at how many people use close family illness, even terminal illness, to cover up affairs. The lowest of the low.
Yes! He met with a woman he was pursuing while he was in Montreal to be with his father who was days away from death from complications from Parkinsons.
I hear that. Mine was too busy with his OW and his boozing to visit his dad while he lay dying. Then he tried to claim he cheated because he was sooooo sad about his father. Cue eye roll.
“He’s just a friend.”
“Working late.” (This is SUCH an easy excuse for a physician. Ugh)
“Have to go in earlier.”
“Office party but no spouses are invited this year.”
“Fishing” (hours and hours and hours…)
“Hiking” (in VT so might as well have been the AT)
“Visiting ‘Tom'” (nope, found out later from “Tom’s” wife that he wasn’t visiting him all those times)
AFTER he retired, he trotted out the “have-to-go-to-work” excuse. Me, incredulous not only because he was already retired but also because it was a Saturday. Me: “But you’re retired.” Him (physician): “I still care about the residents.” Me: “What?”
Almost four years out and I was hoping by now that I would chuckle about all this. But, damn, it still hurts. I kills me that he lied so easily and that I never suspected a thing
p.s. He started withdrawing cash more frequently. When I questioned this, he said, “I just like to carry a lot of cash.” 🤦🏻♀️
Honestly I think for those of us who were really snookered, the pain though it becomes manageable and we go on to content lives, the pain can still come up.
Isn’t Appalachia supposed to be a massive hotspot of paranormal activity and unexplained disappearances? Maybe it’s all just cheaters causing it!
My Fuckwit,’s euphemism was ” I’m going to hangout with ( fellow ER RN) Laura after work…Little did I know that both my wife and Laura were drinking Gentleman Jack and fucking Senior Resident doctors in adjoining one call rooms at the hospital! Sheez!!
I never understand hospital/doctor’s office hookups because nothing seems less sexy than a potentially-infectious-bodily-fluid-tainted exam room. Reminds me again of that study which found adulterers have a higher than average gross-out threshold not just in terms of being more likely to have unsafe sex with randos but eating spoiled food, not washing their hands, etc.
Mine, a member of a critical care transport team, “had an ambulance run to Pennsylvania.”
Or, he was “going to Kim’s house to work on the schedule. Don’t worry — she’s married.”
Mine was never creative and couldn’t hide his (at least) EA with his 19 yo coworker as they rode in the same truck to and from work 6-7 days a week.
Work was the usual excuse and anytime I’d ask for a text when he was going to be later than normal (>7pm), he’d get mad and tell me I wasn’t his mother and to stop tracking him.
Before the EA w/ COW, he would get home most days before me (5pm) and since I left he’s returned to a normal work schedule and almost always texts D19 if he’s late.
On the rare weekends he wasn’t working, he’d almost always be gone for 3.00 hours+ “washing the truck” or “going shopping”. Yes, he’d come back and the truck was clean or he’d have a bag of something from the store but it rarely justified how long he’d been gone.
If I had to pick one, it would be “washing the truck”.
In retrospect, they were many, but they were not creative:
He was working late, especially during COVIDHe was going out for drinks after work with some co-workers and sleeping it off in the car after (and I would congratulate him for not driving drunk, SMH)He took two training trips (he’s an RN) which I now assume he took the child mistress toHe was running errands – he’d be gone for hours and hours and come back with one small bag (I now know he was going to the hotel down the road to fck the child mistress he was putting up there for 3-4 days at a time each week)He was sitting in the Starbucks parking lot watching videos on his phoneThe month before DDay, while on family vacation in Hawaii, he was ‘sightseeing’ alone but had actually rented a $400 hotel room in Honolulu for a hook-up.He was leaving early to pick up our daughter from school… but still picked her up at the regular timeI suspect his ‘therapy’ appointments were also a fiction
I sometimes wonder why I never twigged to any of these but as many of you have said, I trusted him because I loved him. I believed him because I loved him. He also had me so convinced that I needed to work constantly because our finances were so bad that I was working 7 days a week, sometimes 18 hours a day. I didn’t have TIME to wonder what he was up to.
If you’re like me, you trusted him because it never entered your head to do the same. So why would you think someone else of such deception if you would never think of it? The answer is that you wouldn’t. But had the shoe been on the other foot, that would probably have been the first thing to cross his mind… ‘she must be cheating on me.’ He would think that because he would do that (and did that).
The first time (we were still in college) it was “helping [AP’s] dad fix their roof” which somehow always took until way after dark. Later, after he was in law school, it was “going to the library with a study group” which lo and behold, consisted of one other person (a different AP) and was actually held at her place with dinner and a bottle of wine. Yeah, I know, I’m a slow learner.
Lol, this reminded me. One night late his best friend called and their horse had gotten loose and he wanted ex to help her locate it. It could be a dangerous situation because, though they lived on a farmette, they were still close to roads and highways.
Anyway, I went with him and stayed with her while he located the horse and got him back in the barn.
A couple times after that his friend called late at night, same problem and since I was already in bed I didn’t go. After he was outed I wondered if those other two times were just his whore calling and he just used it as an excuse to get away for a few hours. I never would have thought of verifying it, as I wasn’t suspicious yet.
clarifying her husband owned a live fish delivery company, and the time he called he was in another state delivering a load of fish. I know that was true, and maybe the other times were, but I doubt it now.
I love slow learners = the innocent. My favorite people.
We all were slow learners. That’s okay. You learned. And like the rest of us, you probably won’t forget this lesson. Ever.
Mine and his best friend “shared a passion for “Farming””… yea, not farming. Same number of letters and starts with an F and ends with ing. They shared a passion for FuXXing other women….The best friend married his trash; my Ex hasn’t married his yet.
I listened to an interesting video on you tube called Diary of a CEO and he had a former CIA dude who was talking about how good operatives are made. They look for certain traits in people. You need a certain amount of childhood trauma to make you good at hiding things and lying. The way he explained it made alot of sense. Of course plenty of people have trauma in childhood and we dont lie.
My calendar app shows that my Jesus Cheater was in a Thai village building a church. His financial statement shows that he was at a hotel in Bangkok.
Mine used the “at work” excuse to not come home, then to not get off his computer/phone with the other woman when he was home. Also used “just friends” quite often.
After his affair was in the open it became “saving his life” because being at home made him feel bad/guilt and he just “wanted to die.” So did parenting, being accountable for his actions, me showing any negative emotion/crying, etc.
Going to Home Depot
Getting a hair cut
“Business” dinners maybe 3-4 nights a week on some stretches. He would always come home and act sad that he couldn’t be home for dinner with me and the kids and I actually felt bad for him. (Maybe one of those dinners out was a legit business outing, maybe none, who the hell knows.)
Business trips – very, very frequently, one year when my three kids were all under the age of three( sure could have used extra hands and a break every now and again, lived two thousand miles from any family). FW made 14 trips to Alaska that one particular year and about that many for the next three years at least.
Since he was in charge of the national oil response team, it sounded super legit to have these drills and I trusted no one on the earth more than him. He deeply loved his family and me and would never compromise that for a second, right?! Yep.
It was years later I discovered who he was “ drilling”, the 6 year affair partner who he’d go to Home Depot with on very frequent Saturdays ( she lived 30 mins away) with his truck and load it up for supplies to work on her home improvements, made shelves in her house I was told on one of many truth reveals from him. (Our house he never improved and it sure needed it. I just got blamed for everything falling apart, but couldn’t call anyone in to repair because he was going to get to it, damn it!)
The same mistress who was some company VP and on the board for the oil spill response team. What a coincidence!
Thus they honeymooned in Alaska frequently, I am sure, when I managed my three babies home alone all too often.
I still feel great anger over the deceit and lies thrown at me. I wish to God I could let it all go. I can’t see that ever fully happening though. I admire the chumps on this site that have been able to, I think that’s why I can’t not read here, it’s very inspirational.
To be played that badly by someone you so deeply loved has caused inexpressible grief, trauma and harm. ( says the preacher to the choir!)
I don’t see that disappearing from my life. It feels like a personal weakness not to be able to let it fully go though. I’ve been divorced since 2018 now, I should be okay with it all, but I’m just not.
I’m very certain many more escapes to see the mistresses I was completely blind to occurred over the decades he cheated.
I just was drowning in an ocean of devaluation, gaslighting and manipulation I never could have imagined existed. Like a fish asking “ what’s water!?”
Did not recognize it as swirling currents of abuse. It was just the 88th mid life crisis of his or some other drama in his life I would come to the rescue and try and save him from himself over and over. It felt like my life’s mission, to keep him balanced.
Makes you wonder if anything at all was genuine in your life and if you will ever regain a deep trust in humanity, or if that is just lost forever. Maybe it needs to be?
I guess once innocence is gone, it really is gone. Would be like believing in the tooth fairy after you caught your mom retrieving your tooth under your pillow, you just can’t reset back to believing after that. ( I use that one because it happened with my eldest son and me and I still feel bad about it, lol!)
Feels like a failure to thrive on some level, an inability to rebound from catastrophic betrayals when you sincerely wish you could reset and return to the happy person you know you once were.
I haven’t been able to fool myself into believing that is possible yet. And I think that is what it is going to take, self deception.
But you just walk on from there, it isn’t something you get to fix the results of, even if we want to imagine we have. It’s more a total reinvent and some days that feels too fake to even want to pursue.
And he skips through life happy and unaffected from the nuclear holocaust he detonated?!
In no world I’ve ever known is that ever going to be okay in my mind.
I’m not looking for revenge, but he seems free of consequences at all to me and that doesn’t feel just. Of course I’m not that naive at almost 69 to believe the world is just or fair, I know for sure it isn’t.
He’s pretty much lost his kids, which would be a complete devastation to my life and game over.
But he told me he didn’t want to take care of anyone anymore anyway, so that’s more like a win win to his warped damaged mind. All worries vanished, just live for your own happiness, that’s his happy place.
If I lost my kids, the life game is completely over. For him, it’s just another element of the f’ed up life drama he’s created, and he seems to thoroughly enjoy experiencing.
“Erratic, dramatic, chaos”, it’s the perfect description of a narcs chosen dream life. Whole thing just sucks.
Sorry to come across so negative today, fellow chumpers. Yesterday was his birthday and I fought hard to keep him off my mind, but didn’t do too good of a job with that I think. Like you’re in remission for awhile and then the cancer shows back up and you have to treat it once again.
Such a desire to have answers that will never be answered really haunts me.
Just feels like I will always struggle, because I genuinely cared and loved, and that proved to be my greatest weakness as well as greatest strength, perhaps.
He will always live his glamorous, highly respected and esteemed life with his 16 year younger wife( not the same schmoopie from the oil spill team, this one helped him get rid of that one while we were still married!)
With all his toys and all their rich assets and not having to worry one second over all those insignificant ppl you left in your wake. It’s idyllic to cheaters!! ( she has a 30 y/o son too and my kids told me she’s just an awful mother, so no surprise there )
I’m not looking for a meteor to clock him ( not every day anyway) but maybe the young wife can cheat on him and HE gets to experience such a devastating psychic blow?! He doesn’t care enough about ppl for that to even matter to him.
It won’t happen anyway, she’s probably snowed by his amazingness as I was, maybe even more so. His craft of deceit was perfected on me.
Good w/e to you chumps. Hopefully most of you saw the length of this post and said, HEEEELLLLLLL no!!!😂🤣😘
I’m so sorry, my dear. We all get left holding the shit bag and most of the time we can’t fling it back at them, unfortunately. Our society is frequently not set up for justice especially in the family realm. It’s set up by the shit baggers by and for them. It is perfectly fine to feel rage for this man and his lack of consequences and evil schmoopies, it just is. You might even have a day or a weekend of just feeling this rage occasionally – I’d try to make it as visceral as possible by putting his face – you can draw it like CL does – and pin it on a pillow or something disposable, and beat the ever loving fucking shit out of, maybe go burn it in the backyard and then bury it or throw it in a lake or river. Something where you can just start screaming all the feelings of anger, hate, revenge, jealousy, hurt, abuse, whatever you feel, at this thing you’ve chosen that represents him and just completely get it out of your system. Beat the fucking snot out of it. You can chose different things to represent this POS, of course. This might help to gather these feelings together and expel them – you might have to do this a few times, but keep doing it. Go down into the basement and pick some things you can break, you might buy some cheap pottery or whatever, and break that shit up. Just be careful not to hurt yourself, LOL. Think, say, do whatever it is you would like to do to him. Obviously the object of this is not to do some voodoo magic on him, of course, but to collect and help expel these feelings from YOU in a very visceral, focused way. Too often we’re told to forgive and forget, but that shit doesn’t work. Most of us want some kind of revenge – I know I do and I always freely admit it – but we don’t have socially allowed ways of doing this unfortunately or I would be walking around with an ax on occasion, LOL. I think if you allow yourself the ability to discharge your feelings of rage towards this asshole you might start feeling better in the long run and stop having these feelings of impotence. Stop being a lady and get down in the dirt!!!!! I think it might make you feel better. And remember – I’m sure you’re NC but don’t peek either or let others tell you about him – he only exists as a foul stench to be exorcised. As for trusting people, most people really are okay, they’re just weak and frightened and they don’t want to be hurt or hurt someone else. Most people really are not malicious. We have to learn to be somewhat dispassionate about all people and give them some room to be vulnerable in. The less your life and your feelings about yourself revolve around what others think or feel, the stronger you become. I think so, anyway. I don’t say don’t care or don’t get involved but always be aware that most people want to protect themselves and have as easy a life as possible. If you don’t have too many expectations, you won’t get too disappointed. It may sound cynical, but I think it works better than trying to elevate people into being better than they are. The best, purest beings on earth are animals – humans are trying to achieve that level of purity, LOL. GO FORTH AND KICK ASS!
I think I was pretty clear, Chumpasaurus45, but I think in doing things like this that help collect and expel your justifiable rage….over time it will dissipate. We can’t keep up really strong emotions for long, especially negative ones. Giving yourself an outlet that gets it out of you yet doesn’t harm others, I think will help lessen these feelings greatly over time.
I’ll tell you something else as I’m getting old now, pushing 70, you may or may not care, hopefully you’ll reach a point where you don’t, but….when you get old, esp if your health isn’t good, you start ruminating on this life and the one to come, and those thoughts….aren’t necessarily good. You realize all the things you did wrong – you don’t have anywhere to go with them, you used up your energy, your fun time, you can’t keep kidding yourself, Death gargles around the corners. You think about how you fucked up, what you lost, and what’s coming for you next, if anything. He’ll think of this too and believe me…..it won’t be fun. This man is not gonna enjoy old age.
C45 – I’m five years out from a 30-year marriage, also in my late 60’s. I don’t think I could have survived without CL and CN. I navigated a pandemic and divorce on my own (no children) and avoided missteps. I cobbled together an independent and productive life.
But the pain. And the intentional loss of big chunks of memories.
I don’t know if there is a real-life refuge for chumps like us. A Buddhist nunnery? Is our state of mind always going to be different than the widows our age? I still feel some shame in even being divorced. But it must pale in comparison to the shame FW fully earned.
I get a lot of comfort every time I read here and can relate. You shared the reality and I find it incredibly helpful and healing…not negative at all….so thank you.
DDay was the end of 2017. He left just after the start of 2018. Divorce was final autumn of 2021. If you can believe it, I met a fellow chump here who lives in another state. She became my phone buddy and life preserver. DDay was the same for her. Our divorces were actually finalized on the same day in 2021.
Too often, I do not feel or act mighty as it’s described here. I still feel scattered and experience fear and pain and anger. I often feel like I am drowning. I have shared that here (and last summer received critical feedback for it).
The priceless gift of this site is sharing our stories and telling the truth. I could not be more grateful for your post today. I could have written it myself and I’m glad you did.
I’d also like to add that I don’t think you are stuck. Healing and recovery time are different for everyone. I have to be honest and say I am dismayed that others have called you “stuck”. How we feel is how we feel. Timelines are individual.
❤️
I understand the devastation caused by decades of long-time deceit, the feelings of injustice that the cheater skips off happily to his chosen life suffering no consequences for the devastation he leaves in his wake, and the feeling and fear that your old self is not recoverable.
I, too, was divorced in 2018, and am still grappling with the damage done by my ex. This is not to say that I am not working hard to “gain a life,” but some days I have to encourage myself by reminding myself that I have to “fake it until you make it.” But I am only too aware that the psychic damage done to me is not yet repaired, and I wonder whether it will ever be repaired, or whether I can ever be repaired, or have in me what repair takes.
In the awful months after I left him, I would find myself saying to myself, “I want my life back.” What I want now is my self back, but I think that the self I want back was a product of and enabled by the (false) sense of security and safety I had in being married and loved. I don’t know what of myself can be recovered, or understand clearly what has been remade or made new by my actions in leaving and since.
Recovery is hard. We are all just trying to move forward as best we can. Some days are worse/more difficult/more trying than others. I think we have to give ourselves the grace of self-compassion. We’re all pulling for each other–and for you.
You’ve expressed so eloquently so much of what I, too, am feeling.
I’m grateful for all the thoughtful comments on this site. Recovery is hard and the pain may persist forever even after we’ve “gained lives.” This is what I’ve learned in the nearly 4 years since my divorce.
I’ve also learned that sharing with like-minded people here helps the healing process. Thanks to you and others for thoughtful comments.
Chumpasaurus45, I really sympathize. I too have some of that feeling of having lost my innocence. I also resonate with your sense that you are experiencing a “failure to thrive.” Just today, I was telling myself that I feel like I’m “dented”; with both my marriages having ended in sexual betrayal, I’m having a hard time rebounding from the trauma. My only suggestion–if I may–is to consider giving antidepressants a try, if you haven’t already. I am on antidepressants now, and they do help to protect my mind from these thoughts about the damage wrought by my exes, and my own “failure” to thrive. (By the way, my first husband betrayed and gaslighted me crushingly, and like yours he has gone on to a very glamorous life with his younger wife who like him is rich and pretty famous. It’s indeed hard not to compare!) Mostly, I just want to say I hear you. Plus: as Amazon Chump says in her reply, we chumps are often way more awesome than we think we are.
I am so sorry you’re still stuck. Like OHFFS and yourself, I was also a long-time devoted spouse (30 years), and I even went through wreckconciliation. I wanted my marriage so badly, with grandchildren sitting by our rocking chairs, that I really knew what I was doing when I took the FW back. When he was having a difficult time kissing me, I said, “Don’t act like that. I know where your mouth has been and I’m willing to kiss you.” I will say this, I was finally done with his bullshit even though I decided to stay married to him. I remember him accusing me after I finally started standing up for myself, “You’ve changed!” And my response was, “No FW. This is how I’ve always felt. I just finally decided to say something.” And that was pretty much the slide to the end of my marriage. It was because I wasn’t believing in his magnanimous, dynamic persona anymore. I saw the reflection of the true Dorian Gray in his mirror, and I figured that it didn’t matter how much I kissed his ass in the past, he was unhappy no matter what I did and I was the cause. So, I figured that I might as well do things the way I wanted to do. I had made vows to God for better or worse, but I was done kissing his ass. However, when the second DDay came around, I was done for good. You cannot make a marriage work when there’s only one person working on the marriage (especially when there’s a skank in the background.) I was very insecure and imagined that the skank was so much better than me. I wanted to die, but I thank God that I didn’t and I will always be grateful for several of the things said here over and over: “This pain is finite.” “Not everything you love is good for you.” “Trust us; someday you will be grateful that he did this.” And of course, CL’s “Leave a cheater; Gain a Life” helped me so much especially reading everyone’s stories only to hear that cheaters are all the same. I later realized that all of those things were true. The pain ended once I got a life. Though I loved that asshole and would have died for him, he was not good for me. Neither is chocolate or alcohol. I was finally able to walk away from my love for that dick. (I still eat chocolate and drink alcohol). And 9+ years later (actually sooner), he did me the best favor in the world when he dumped me for his skank. I am no longer walking on eggshells. I am no longer wasting my time trying to make somebody else happy. And I will never again deal with a man who is stuck in his teenage years expecting people to make him happy. I don’t have time for immature people anymore. If I’m lucky, I still have another 25 years of life on this earth and I for dang sure am not going to kiss someone else’s ass. So Chumpasaurus, I think you need to stop thinking of what could have been, and just face the fact that it never was. The happiness that was there was only because of you, so go out and realize that you’re awesome! You have friends and family that love you for being genuine. I cannot tell you that your FW will end up in a bad place. In fact, just give yourself a break on wishing for karma and say to yourself, “He lost the best thing he had going for him, and that was me!” It is absolutely true. The fact that he’s not bothered by the loss of his kids just shows you that he was always that way. People who are genuine would die at the loss of their kids. His karma may not be a ‘crash and burn’ or the loss of his fabulous income, but his karma is that he is the same soulless person that he has always been. That was the man that you married, and he will be that man till he dies. People do not change. Come on board to being happy and wonderful!
I wonder if part of the issue is that you don’t hate him enough. Like hate him down to the bone and the horse he rode in on. Start with his planet-wrecking career and that of his hatchet-faced AP. I just wrote a bit about a close friend who married a guy who worked for the most evil global law firm in history. It wasn’t until she divorced him that she could really see how cohesive his evil was, that his treatment of her was part and parcel of why he meshed and “fit in” so well around the engineers of war, injustice and death.
I know my perspective isn’t very popular, that “hate can save!” But I see emotions as a former colleague described them, as colors in a paint box that are neither good nor bad on their own, all that matters is what “picture” you paint with them. If the picture you paint involves freedom from emotional bondage, awareness, enlightenment, etc., it’s fine art.
Great post, HoaC. I don’t believe ANY emotion can be ignored or disregarded or shoved down, they just fester when you try to do this. It’s best to handle them in some way, that’s why I recommend a kinetic process to get the emotions out rather than trying to suppress or understand them. We feel what we feel we just have to handle it in a hopefully non-destructive way (or least destructive way). I also agree with you about the industry – if someone does asshole things for a living, you can’t expect better from him privately.
It seems to me that the way you are thinking about this may be keeping you stuck.
The idea that an utterly empty person such as your FW could ever be happy (in the sense you understand it) is a cognitive error.
Another is telling yourself you can’t recover, and that recovery means being okay with what happened. You don’t have to be okay with it. You just have to accept what is, and to resolve to not let what you went through interfere with the rest of your life. I know letting go is particularly hard for older chumps who were married a long time. I’m one myself. That was your life and it was taken from you. The way I look at is that my new life does not have to look like my old one. I now find I prefer it this way. I got to do a complete re-set, which I think is an important silver lining. Is it possible you are hanging on to the grief in part to avoid doing a re-set? It’s hard to completely change your attitudes and priorities, so I understand why you might want to avoid it.
Anyway, just offering some thoughts based on my experience, which is very similar to yours. If I’m out to lunch, let me know.
It’s easy to get stuck in ideas and feelings about how life should be especially in our old age and so often it doesn’t turn out that way. Mine certainly didn’t, and for people who are victims of war, or natural disasters, or serious illnesses, it just doesn’t and it’s more helpful, for me anyway, to try to look at what I can do with what I have left than mourn over what I lost and can’t have. Yes, life IS unfair but that doesn’t help us where we’re at in living every day. If you have one leg, you try to learn to work with the one leg and be happy if you can still walk somewhat rather than just mourn the lost leg – it’s easy to say this I know, but it actually is true.
Leedy, Amazon Chump, HOAC, and OHFFS,
Thank so much for all your comments, I truly appreciate the feedback and the generosity of your time to share! So kind! So many good thoughts expressed too, I will spend time contemplating much of it and take it to heart, thank you!
I was a bit embarrassed coming off as negative yesterday, it’s not my go to and I don’t usually express it out loud.
I do realize I need a different angle that consistently works for me or I am going to teeter totter for balance all too often. Which has a way of keeping me one step forward and three back and it doesn’t take me anywhere positive. I have hope in my heart for better tomorrows,I am not one to easily give up. I just can’t call it up every day is the issue and wanted to see if other chumps feel some sadness over that perceived ‘ stuckness’ too.
I am so thankful for this site, it’s been massively helpful!
I do have great gratitude for what remains in my life. He might not want his kids, but they are spectacular, loving and wonderful. I want them!!! I will always want them!!!
There isn’t a skank on the planet who could possibly ever replace them. It’s pretty incomprehensible to me that their wayward father would think so and on many levels I pity him for not being capable of valuing the things in this world that hands down have the most value, the priceless gifts before his eyes he has been unable to see.
That is a great loss to him he’ll never understand because I believe he’s never been fully conscious in this life.
I wish I could have saved him, but it would be narcissistic of me to imagine I had that level of power and control over another. I know I never did.
I have to let go of what I thought I had and what I longed for in my life and move into what might be that maybe even has some hidden surprises that will still amaze me. I won’t give up the search, I just get caught in the mud sometimes.
Thanks fellow chumps, you are all so special, I’m humbled by the gift of this site and that there are that many loving kind ppl out there in the world always blows my mind and thoroughly warms my heart. 💕🙏
Very timely! I was also going to write into CL about the CNN Jake Tapper series. Surprisingly well done considering the subject matter. I also rolled eyes at the Sanford episode but really had to stop from hurling watching the episode the following week which featured John Edwards. This episode had literally everything (and more!) in the cheater handbook. On the surface a boyishly charismatic but slightly glib politician running for US presidential office. A hard working loyal wife with terminal cancer. A younger, blonder and somewhat ditzy OW. An unexpected pregnancy. The public denial of paternity. The staffer (and his wife!) who agreed to publicly claim paternity. The lies, lies and more lies to wife who was dying. The loyal statement the dying wife was persuaded to put out. I sat drained and speechless at the end of this show. What absolute and undiluted scum John Edwards was. So I guess his excuse was “I’m campaigning for President…”!
My separation was long-distance and supposedly a cooling-off period where we were working on things (or not). I wondered how he could be so perpetually busy. I was working three jobs including parenting the commuting college students, and he was retired. How could he be busier than me?
One time he let slip that he was “helping” various women. OK, loud and clear, buddy. His attorney then confirmed it with mine, saying that he didn’t like going to trial when his client had committed adultery and the other side had not. Thankfully we settled, and I didn’t have to sit through the details.
Then, a friend told me how her husband of just a year was perpetually at the widowed neighbor’s house “helping.” She told him that she felt uncomfortable about that because she observed their fondness for each other and how he started hiding his phone. He said he wasn’t going to stop. I told her my experience with that. Several years passed.
Then, there was yet more going very, very wrong, and she decided to tell him that she wanted a divorce. He spent three nights at the widow’s house. OK, confirmed. Then he tried to hurt her one night, and she ran. We moved her out the next day.
These FW’s….Yes, “helping” is a euphemism.
If only that woman had listened to you at the one year mark about him “helping” the widow, she might have saved years of deceit. I wish we could get this message out particularly – stop this as soon as you see it’s happening and get out. It rarely gets better.
Yes, I agree. She older with grown kids, a good job, and certainly could have called it early on, but like so many of us, hoped that what she was seeing wasn’t true. When they got married, she moved into his house, so of course she wonders if the relationship was going on when she was just dating him. They would have celebrated their 4th anniversary next month.
Her attorney sent a letter with the basic terms, and they are generous. He keeps his house and everything she didn’t take. She took her bedroom set, a desk, and about half of the kitchen stuff plus her personal items. She gets her savings account and retirement assets.
So we’ll see.
Mine coached our children’s hockey teams over the years. I thought it was odd that he decided to stay on coaching a team once our youngest wasn’t a player anymore. Since it was such a huge time commitment and both kids were playing on other teams and had other activities as well, I begged him not to do it. But he did. For two more years. Turns out he was having sex with at least two of the players’ mothers.
He also had to “travel for work”, and his assistant would constantly “add things to his schedule” that he wouldn’t know about until the last minute.
Lying, cheating scumbag.
I’ve shared it here before but my ex was working these crazy hours one week. Like 12 to 15 hour days. He’d leave the house before 6 AM and get home at like 8 or 9 PM. He worked in solar installation and had always told me that they couldn’t work after dark. So I asked, how are they making you work in the dark? And he told me it was such a big, important job that they had put lights up.
I felt bad for him, working so hard. Then on Friday night, he gets home earlier, around 5 or 6 PM, looks at his time clock on his phone and announces, “All right! I just barely managed to hit 40 hours this week!”
My fucking jaw dropped. How? How did you work 15 hour days all week and only hit 40 hours?! He got all mad and couldn’t even come up with any excuse, just “Why do you have to question me?”
I literally yelled at him, “Because math! Because math exists!”
I felt so friggin’ crazy back then. He would argue basic math with me and act like I was being insane for knowing basic math. “No, Katie Pig, 15+15+15+15+12 = just barely 40. What’s wrong with you?” I do not miss that shit.
“The shit”=lying+cheating+entitlemen+gaslighting+HIM!
“Just hanging out with the coworkers” on his days OFF.
“Painting” after work until 2,3,4 am
Or the weekend “work trip” where he left his phone in the hotel while having dinner but accidentally came home with “gifts” from a local town (frankenmuth, if anyone is from MI) that he shoved in the back of his closet.
When he decided to stay home and read instead of going to the kid rock concert (I took my dad and we had so much fun and I am SO glad I did!)
There was probably so many stories I just didn’t give a shit anymore or enough to even remember them