How Did You Change the Narrative with Your Cheater?
After being devalued and prioritizing his needs, she’s changed the cheater’s narrative in favor of her own.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I just changed the narrative with my FW ex.
He mailed me a photo stick of pictures of our family. I sent a message through our kids asking for pictures. I had none, he had taken them all. He emailed me that he would send them, despite me not directly asking him.
I saw your post about being fed “you didn’t meet my needs so that’s why I cheated” and so that inspired me. I was told many times by him that I didn’t give him enough sex, dress up enough, or decorate fancy enough (despite us being pretty much broke with three kids).
Funny that, he didn’t meet MY sexual needs or many of my other needs and I still didn’t cheat.
Anywho, I sent him an email thanking him and telling him that “I was glad to get them because I could see in those pictures that I was an awesome wife and mother — and beautiful to boot!!”
It’s still early, so I haven’t heard anything back, but if I know him at all, I’m sure his jaw hit the floor and his eyes bugged out at my very bold (but true) statement. I’ll let you know if I get a response back, but I definitely won’t respond back even if he tells me he wholeheartedly agrees with me; which I very much doubt he will because he loves the blameshifting narrative.
I didn’t write that to get a response out of him, I wrote that to change the narrative and let a cheater know that he doesn’t get to tell me who I am any longer!!
Gotta say, I feel pretty freaking awesome and empowered right now!
I would love to hear how others have changed their FW narratives or for others that haven’t so far, maybe they can brainstorm some ideas on how they could? Go chumps!
Orlando
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Dear Orlando,
Hey, whatever gets you to meh is fine by me. Personally, I’d rather deprogram my own head rather than assert my self-worth to a fuckwit.
Even if you don’t expect or want a response, it could still be construed as kibbles. I KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF ME AND I’M NOT THAT!
I prefer to move directly to “I don’t care what you think of me” — and practicing it. Through no contact and irrelevance. (I’m not asserting my worth to the meter reader, am I?)
But this could be the crux of the Friday Challenge:
How did you change the cheater’s narrative about you?
Did you do this work yourself, or did you get out in the world and realize that you’re a stock that trades pretty high? Or did you always know your worth and never bought the devaluing bullshit of how you drove them to cheat?
Discuss! And TGIF!
My Cheater’s narrative was all about devaluing me to all and sundry (including to myself and our kids) so as to allow her to feel justified in doing what she was doing. To be frank, I’ve never felt the need to change what she thinks and says about me, Rather, my focus since D-Day and then the finalisation of our Divorce has always been on improving myself and proving to myself that I was so much better and worth so much more than she wanted to believe.
The important things are what I know and what the people who are important to me know. What Ex-Mrs LFTT thinks she knows but doesn’t because she’s happier believing her own lies about me than she is the truth doesn’t count for sh*t.
LFTT
Like The Godfather was sort of the I Ching of past generations, I think the HBO series Rome also has some mine-able quotes. I especially liked Anthony’s declaration that “Twelve mangy dogs can take down a lion.”
I think caring or not caring whether some asshole defames or triangulates depends entirely on how much real damage they could conceivably do regarding things that matter. If some nut is in the position to do real harm to me or mine, I batten hatches and take serious countermeasures. But if the person is powerless to do damage, I still pay attention even if I don’t bother to react. I’ve made the mistake in the past of shrugging off petty people like they were nippy lapdogs only to find that, when the chips were down and I was in a vulnerable position, the same pipsqueaks could gather forces and take my throat out. I no longer ignore bad intentions even in lame-ass, ineffectual people.
You have a very healthy outlook & I applaud you for that 👏
I knew my worth. FW still tried the blameshift. It didn’t work and he only ended up looking like a fool, but he would forget that and try again. Not the brightest of lights, that FW.
I also got blameshifting from some members of my own family. I stopped speaking to them for a year until they apologized, admitted they were wrong and agreed to cut it out. I didn’t bother to defend myself. If you haven’t done something wrong you shouldn’t have to defend yourself. Recently, a family member tried to blame me for the demise of my marriage again, all these years later. 🙄 I haven’t spoken to him for months, and I won’t until he admits he was wrong. He apologized, but did not admit what he said wasn’t true. So no dice. To me, an apology without an admission of error is insincere and worthless.
Wow, these family buttinskis are so bizarre. I would never foist my judgment on someone about something so personal and expect that relationship to survive. Consequently, I always assume when family members do this it must relate to shoving someone down on the pecking order in service of another covert agenda like, say, a battle for inheritance or maybe an attempt to shame someone as an expression of their own shameful secrets.
I think there was some of that. My mother, for example, was probably ashamed of her own cheating of many decades ago, and my reaction to FW’s cheating brought that feeling back. In despising him, to her I was also saying she was despicable. So she was reacting to the judgement she thought I would make about her if I knew she cheated. I think she didn’t know that I was already well aware of it.
Guilt is ugly, in’it?
Wow, why some of your family not backing you up? Do they have friendships with your ex?
FW now has no contact with my family. I think they got angry at me because of that. FW used to do them favors, so me breaking up with them meant they had to hire people to do their taxes and fix their plumbing. They wanted me to sacrifice my well-being for their convenience. A few of my family members never forgave me for not putting their wants first.
I have a brother who is still social media friends with my X. And he seems to believe his narrative. This brother is a full-on co-dependent with a flamboyant narcissist wife so I chalk it up to his dysfunction and refusal to see reality.
Oh boy. Yeah, he sounds like he’s got issues.
Ooooh. That makes sense, in a “they’re really self-centered and terrible people” kind of way. I’m so sorry you have to deal with family members like that. That’s so cruel!
Here’s what I have learned (after trying for over two years to “change the narrative” a/k/a shine the light on the truth): you CAN’T change HIS narrative. It’s a frustrating waste of your time and effort. He has a well-honed story of your marriage, bolstered by many re-tellings and supported by his loser friends who admired his cheating because of his “bad/sad marriage.”
When I discovered that my husband had an AP of one year (a total shock), our first conversation, while I was traumatized and barely able to process what he was saying, while sitting on a bed in a new beach house she had occupied before me, his narrative went something like: “I was unhappy for SO long. I was not your first priority. You know I like sexy lingerie. You did not spend enough time with me.” Yada Yada Yada. SHE later informed me (through a text attack) that his narrative to her included that I was “fat” and that he spent too much money on my birthday parties and “other indulgences.”
First, I tried to change ME. Back to size 6. Never out of his sight. Enough lingerie to stock a strip club. Then I tried to change his narrative. It was important to show him that he was WRONG about our marriage! Look at all of these pictures where you look happy! Look at this calendar – we are together all the time! Yada Yada Yada.
What I came to learn is that a cheater’s narrative is what JUSTIFIES their cheating to them, their AP and the world. They have to hang onto it or face the truth that they are just entitled and immoral and there is NO JUSTIFICATION for the pain they inflict.
So I changed MY narrative. It took a while. But I finally spoke my truth and told him I would not accept blame for his actions or listen to his bullshit anymore. I know what MY marriage was . I know what OUR marriage was. And guess what? So does he…
Lady Lawyer
yup if he gives up the story he tells himself he has nothing. I came across the phrase “reality argument” recently and the penny dropped. Don’t have “reality arguments” with people. If you’re not agreeing on basic facts, there’s no point continuing.
This. Liars are committed to the lie. I think it’s hard for honest people to really grasp this. We run on a totally different operating system.
I recently heard something that stuck with me: “Lies run sprints, the truth runs marathons.” It’s so true. I don’t try to change narratives anymore, because it’s pointless when you’re dealing with dishonest people. Just move on.
It may take a while, but eventually the truth speaks for you. In my case, it took a decade. I’m successful and thriving, and my ex is a bum who’s despised by the community, so it’s now clear to people who the problem was.
“Lies run sprints, the truth runs marathons.” Love it.
This is so true. 3 years later and I look better than ever, house looks fabulous, kid doing well, job going well while he is now 52 years old and still living with his parents, shacked up there with his current girlfriend, and his business is failing to non-existent. So who was the actual problem in this scenario?
“What I came to learn is that a cheater’s narrative is what JUSTIFIES their cheating to them, their AP and the world. They have to hang onto it or face the truth that they are just entitled and immoral and there is NO JUSTIFICATION for the pain they inflict.”
100%!
Even if you can get them to agree that their narrative is false, inside they are still going to be clinging to their precious self deceptions. Self deception is what have instead of an authentic identity and values.
The worse the situation with cheating is……the more they have to lie and the harder they stick to the lies, no matter what.
“you CAN’T change HIS narrative. It’s a frustrating waste of your time and effort. He has a well-honed story of your marriage, bolstered by many retellings and supported by his loser friends (and family) who admired his cheating because of his “bad/sad marriage”. Well said, I know I can’t change his narrative but I changed mine.
I’ve often said that because he said that I was useless to him, I had nowhere to go but up. He said that I contributed nothing to his life in our several decades together and that he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I had truly worn myself down to almost nothing trying to please him while working part-time and raising our two children. I rarely spent anything on myself because we were saving so he could retire early, which he did. He told me that I was stupid and would never make it without him. Then he gave me a long, messy divorce when it should have been just a few months.
I was working in retail at the time in addition to two other jobs. I learned about brands and fit and bought better clothes with my employee discount. I learned when things go on sale and how to put together accessories. I enjoyed being part of the team that unloaded trucks and picked-and-packed internet orders. I was good at my job there. I had to quit because it began wearing me down physically, but I learned so much at that store.
I had a side business that I expanded into full-time when I just could not get full-time work. I was older and had stepped away from full-time work for too long. That took off during the pandemic. I bought a house. Both kids graduated from college debt-free and are acing adulthood. I closed the business and am semi-retired. I do a lot of volunteer work with women like us now, particularly the “gray divorce” types.
Yes, I changed the narrative. If I knew what I know now when I was in my 30’s, I wouldn’t have even been interested in my ex. He wouldn’t have even gotten notice.
What kind of business, Elsie? I’m so impressed!
Online instructional design. Of course, that began to fade after a few years things got back to normal, but I had a nice run there.
You know you’ve transcended when you can look back and think “Eh, I wouldn’t have chosen that person if I knew then what I know now.” It’s quite a victory in personal development if you think of all the ways that living with an abuser stunts growth if only because, during that relationship, the person closest to you wasn’t genuinely safe to talk to about hopes, dreams, aspirations and those all important plans for self-improvement, etc. They would have simply weaponized all of it against you.
You’re so right! I wouldn’t chose FW today! I didn’t have much self-esteem & my parents encouraged our marriage despite me having concerns about his arrogance.
Isn’t it crazy how worthless people project their own worthlessness onto the people who are too good for them?
⬆️ Truth Bomb ⬆️
This👆👆👆. I outshone both my cheaters, they knew it,I knew it. But they HAD to take me down by using other woman. The only wY to teach me a lesson. I shine without those clouds ⛅️ around me now
Even his own attorney told mine, “It seems from my chair that she was too good for him. Tell her I’m doing all I can.”
What little I know since he left is that he has chosen a series of low-quality women that he spends like crazy on. Knowing what he had when we divorced, he really can’t afford that, but he was definitely one who thought he could buy love.
Nope. Just own-up-and-show-up, dude. That’s true love.
Yes- mine thought he could shut me up with treats, the occasional holiday so he could ignore me in a new place and drag me to a concert of his choosing now and again.
I didn’t want any of it- I just wanted a partner who was interested in me and was capable of telling the truth.
Real basic stuff.
Nope- too hard apparently.
He offered to buy me the house of my dreams with all new furniture in any location but here. Obviously, he didn’t want to be around people who knew the score. And I wondered where all this money was going to come from. He was retired, and I had been the personal finance person, paying the bills, getting the tax stuff in, etc. Oh, and we’d travel all over!
Throwing money at the problem wasn’t going to do it. I told the kids we might end up in someone’s basement, but the three of us decided it would be worth it. That didn’t happen, but I’m soooo glad I didn’t let him buy my affections.
Good for you!
They tried to buy us because they had stuff all else to offer.
No amount would be enough
Smart attorney. Third parties with at least a few brain cells rattling around upstairs tend to see the truth… which is why it’s astonishing to me that enablers can be so dumb.
Hope you’re doing well now.
Yes, my closure came through the two legal teams. It doesn’t often work out that way. His sadly died of COVID after they had finished their part of closeout. That created some problems for me as my ex then went pro-se, but none of it stuck.
That’s so powerful! You’re amazing! What is with FWs and believing we’ll never live without them? I’m starting to suspect it’s some sort of projection from their own attachment issues.
Yes, my ex had significant attachment issues that I discussed with our mutual therapist after he left. He had somewhat pulled the wool over her eyes although she had called him out correctly in many areas. But he had presented his childhood as “all good” when it was actually a disordered mess. I got so very frustrated with his siblings when we were separated because it was all about blaming me and exonerating him, but I realized in therapy that’s typical of disordered family dynamics.
The truth was that I was in many ways better prepared than he was for the divorce and life afterward. Thankfully, he finally gave up on bugging me and went his own way.
👏👏👏 well done!
My mother devalued me and FW picked up where she left off so I had my work cut out for me. The first thing I did after DDay was apply to graduate school. Each A I received in class helped me to start believe that I might actually not be as dumb as FW clearly thought I was. My professors asked me to be a graduate assistant and my words got published in a scientific journal. While I was finishing my masters I decided that teaching was not going to be enough money and I should try to get my RN degree so I started that. I kept getting As in that, finished my masters and I’m heading to the final two years of the RN degree now. Each class, each A helped me prove to myself that I have worth, that I can get stuff done, and I’m smart. I was also interviewing for various jobs- got an offer from most of them and started several new jobs and side hustles. I also quit several of them on my path to figuring it what my future career should be and landed on health care. The third aspect of me gaining a life was being able to fix stuff around my house. My first big project was building a retaining wall in my back yard- I designed and executed (and moved all that dirt) myself (with a bit of help from my teenagers). These three things- going to class, trying new jobs out of my wheelhouse, and fixing all the things around my house helped me finally realize that I am an absolute badass and SO much better off without a FW.
My favorite stories on this blog are hearing about how chumps have leveled up! Thanks for sharing, I love happy endings. Good for you.
That is very badass! 🙌
Wow! Mighty!
Its still pretty new to me, 10 months post D-Day and 1 month post divorce. I’m moving closer to Tuesday, I’m maybe on Sunday now which is a huge improvement on where I was. My biggest struggle now is the mind movies, and especially internal conversations I have with her. Every fucking day I keep doing the same one, “why did you have to do this”, “why wasn’t I enough”, etc. I’m able to tell myself afterwards that it doesn’t matter, nothing she says will change anything, so I can snap out of it. But I keep drifting back. Maybe when I get to Monday they will clear up.
I too was stuck in the mind movie loop, and I finally had to evict my FW from my headspace. I reminded myself over and over when FW thoughts would pop up that my mental real estate was mine and I’m changing how I use it to focus on something productive. Try obsessing over a hobby that you love instead. Good luck!
I have discovered that evicting my ex from my headspace is related to my doing the work on myself that comes before even “fixing my picker.” And while I no longer ask questions like “One last time’s” “why did you have to do this? why wasn’t I enough?” (the answer being: because he’s an entitled fw), to figure out why I put up with the devaluing, etc. I do look back at what I put up with and how his devaluing played into prior scripts I had about myself (FOO issues). But although he may still be in the headspace, the focus has shifted from him to me, from “why did he do this?” to “why was I willing to put up with it?”
It’s a time thing unfortunately. Just keep telling yourself with time the noise will get quieter & your self-confidence will get louder. Believe in the process. I felt confident enough to say that to FW & that wouldn’t have happened a few years ago.
That will get better. Maybe the thoughts won’t be gone forever, but in time they will only happen occasionally. It’s only natural to have such thoughts in the face of an unfathomable betrayal. I still have them every now and then, but they are easy to dismiss. I have those kind of thoughts about a lot of things people do, not just about FW. It’s the curse of the never-ending why.
I also struggle with constant imaginary conversations that affect my mood. I just take a deep breath and focus on something else when I catch myself. I’m a maladaptive daydreamer, which I’m sure is part of it.
It is really hard for the first little while. It really really is. Hang in there, One last time. You’ll come out on the other end better for it!
Within 30 minutes of me telling FW I wanted a divorce, I got a 32 bullet point email about how it was all my fault 😆I can’t change her narrative, that is locked in stone because if it wasn’t then she would have to take some accountability for her actions. And we can’t have that, can we?
It was more changing my narrative. I used to be obsessed with time, like if I saw a movie from 2016 I’d get caught in a fantasy of travelling back to that time and “fixing” things. As if it was my thing to “fix”. It was places like this, and a good therapist, that made me realise I wasn’t the one who was broken.
I still have the odd time travel fantasy, but now it would be so I could leave FW sooner.
The typed list was also my moment of realizing how ridiculous the moving goalpost of Fuckwit expectations is…
And the moment you start to be embarrassed you married such a an entitled person: now that’s a new narrative.
Sounds like with a 32 bullet point email she’d already been preparing her excuses for some time.
My narrative changed by doing 2 main things emphasized on this site. Go no contact, and show up for your kid. Doing the first gave me more energy and time to do the second. The no contact is hard at first, but once you reframe it to ” I am just wasting time writing an email/texting/ect this narc” it becomes easier. Watching your child grow is very rewarding. People around you will see it but why should you give a f$&k about what they think. It has been 2 1/2 years since Dday and I find myself back at base line in terms of mood and realize I have grown through all of this as has my son.
His narrative is all about him and his addictions, which he calls needs. I don’t have to listen to his addictions talking anymore. My narrative is about observed behavior of his and the way I have learned what I will and won’t accept.
Oh my goodness!! Both my Xs quoted their needs, which were not needs but ADDICTIONS!! WOW! I never put 2+2 together. Each had porn and OW side dishes and I was never ever going to be enough unless I turned into.a 3 ring 🎪 circus. How I changed my head movies is looking at my peaceful twin bed with feather blankets and big fluffy.pillows and say, this, this peace, untouched by someone’s insatiable addictions and hyperactivity, demands and devaluing, destructive rages and routine emotional abuse, this bed alone, is my new heaven. I am never alone or lonely. I am free.7.months past Divorce 19 months post D day. So much peace is all mine.
I actually get this. While I have no idea where ex/FW is, and have no contact, if I ever ran into him in public (the only place I could run into him) and was approached by him (because I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to him), I would probably do the same. Not because I think ex/FW would be able to appreciate it, but because I think smiling and acknowledging that I was a great partner in front of him, who drug me down so much, would feel so good for myself. I don’t need it for closure. It won’t change anything. But I imagine it would feel nice to do so.
Good on you for feeling and being mighty! Make sure you don’t just say that to your FW, though, say it to yourself and believe it! That’s where it counts!
My childhood was rocky; my father had literally told me that I was horrible and terrible and no other parent would ever want me but him. So after my ex began claiming I was horrible and terrible and had driven him away with my behavior. I began to wonder whether the problem wasn’t really me. I saw the doctor and had a full neuropsychological work-up done.
You know what it found?
I’m intelligent and abnormally aggressive for a woman. That’s it.
I don’t have any personality disorders, I didn’t need anger management, I wasn’t a terrible person. With my other traits being normal, I am able to control my aggression.
So what I started doing was work on myself. Read up on healthy boundaries and emotional abuse and personality disorders. Came to understand what had really happened during my childhood and marriage. Came to believe my XH was a sociopath and my father somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum (though, as CL says, it does not actually matter what flavor of f***’ed up they are; all that matters is they’re f***’ed up). Realized my anger was often a defense mechanism against their perpetual emotional abuse and neglect.
I’ve been divorced 9.5 years, living away from my father for ~24 years, and time has proven that hard work on myself was the right choice. My life now evidences good choices and emotionally healthy behaviors; their lives continue to be dysfunctional.
The only thing that’s changed is they can no longer blame me for their problems and failures in life (or, at least, if they want to blame me, I don’t have to hear about it). That is how I changed the narrative.
I feel like “abnormally aggressive FOR A WOMAN” is a compliment, and maybe also an insult to women…
That kind of depends on what’s meant to signify “aggressive.” Does it mean ambitious for self? Unwilling to occupy the expected feminine norms? If so, then I’d be proud, too. Because those feminine norms–the behaviors and attitudes we are socialized into–are in and of themselves insults to women.
I’m actually low-key proud of it. 🤣 But she showed me a dot chart with my traits and the aggression dot was much higher than the other dots, confirming what I’ve always known!
I have a similar story regarding my family of origin and how it influenced my romantic relationships. We’re their scapegoats. It’s really interesting to me how when you leave all these people behind, their lives fall apart and it becomes obvious who the problem was all along.
Some cheaters lives do not fall apart and they do.well. I DO.NOT. CARE.They no longer matter to me
Yup! My father is almost 67 years old. I’m 42 and I have literally never heard him apologize (other than a brief sullen “sorry” here or there) and take accountability for his actions. I was his constant scapegoat as an older child and teenager. I now think part of the reason he treats me so much worse than my other siblings is that he resents me for leaving home at age 18 and thus leaving him to fester in his own problems. (That’s fine; there’s a reason we are low-contact.)
He doesn’t have all of the same issues as my ex, but growing up under him did make it that much harder to spot red flags when I began dating my ex. Now that I’m away from both of them, it is very clear they were always their own problems.
I got out in the world and found out my stock traded high.
I don’t think there is any value in arguing with a liar. I knew I was a good person with a great work ethic, so instead of using those assets to help him build his life (which I did) I started using them to build my world.
He was left to use his and whores assets for his world and the results were evident to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
Fuckwit lied about everything in the years I knew him. I was 27 when he cheated. I thought he was 35 and monogamous, but it turned out he was in his 40s (!) and had a whole ass fiancee the entire time (!!). It is terrifying how a sociopath can lie.
His narrative was that I was some crazy girl and a loser who couldn’t get over him. Within weeks, he went from telling me he loved me to saying we were never really together and he only got with me because he felt sorry for me. He cited the fact I was unemployed and mentally ill, which I was. I was deeply depressed from his abuse and later diagnosed with PTSD.
It’s important you understand the context before I get to the punchline, because the situation was THAT fucked up.
A decade later, I’ve gone from waiting tables to a lucrative white collar job. No debt, healthy savings, healthy retirement accounts, clean bill of health after years of working with a trauma therapist. Pretty impressive considering I spent my 20s below the poverty line, on Medicaid, and suicidal.
Fuckwit graduated college at 55 after years of screwing around, drives for Uber and is sincerely considering a PhD despite his wife pleading with him to get a job with benefits to support the family. Their life is one track wreck after another (lawsuits, liens, evictions, personal tragedies). Fuckwit didn’t show up to pauper’s court during Covid because he thinks he’s above the law, so the judge threw the book at him. If he manages to retire without ending up under a bridge, I’ll be surprised.
The only reason I know all this is I ran into Fuckwit a few years ago and he was outraged I had no interest in being friends, so he started running around to everyone in our extended community complaining about me. When people asked what the hell was going on, I was honest but brief about our past and stuck to the facts. People were horrified and honestly, it was gratifying how many of them said, “That’s rape by deception!”
With my blessing, word got around and now the community (which already disliked Fuckwit) now despises him. He lost a job and a lot of colleagues who until that point tolerated him.
The best was a community gathering where my name came up and someone said, “Oh yes, she’s doing great! She’s the CMO now of this startup…” I’m told Fuckwit looked deeply uncomfortable.
He continued his attempts at harassment by proxy for a while but eventually dropped it when no one bit. He couldn’t explain away the obvious – that I’m very successful and respected, while Fuckwit’s a broke bum and a loser. Also, I NEVER spoke about him. People actually came to me asking, “Do you even know this guy?? He’s obsessed with you.” They thought he was a stalker!
Lies run sprints, the truth runs marathons.
You were the key to whatever success he had. He probably wanted the “friendship” to try to recover some of that. You might have been useful to him still.
Useful to him, definitely. But he’s never had any success whatsoever and was a total loser even 15 years ago. He’s never changed. I have no idea what I saw in him.
It’s funny, I think I didn’t know my worth UNTIL I caught FW cheating and he gave me his list of blame shifting complaints.
I felt pretty bad about myself over the years of subtle devaluation and neglect. He rarely outright said anything, but c’mon, actions speak louder than words. I knew.
But when a freaking CHEATER gave me an actual list of my inadequacies, it was like a 💡. The audacity!
Half the list was bullshit, and the other half… Well, why would I change anything for a fake lying neglectful husband? Of course it took years to internalize my new narrative (and still working), but that was the day it changed. I wasn’t perfect, but I was faithful and I sure as hell deserved better than this guy.
And yes every so often I get the urge when I have to be in his presence (kids) to look good to show him what he lost, but then I laugh at the idea. Who gives a fuck whether he ever realizes what he lost? It’s not my responsibility to teach him his lesson. I’m not going to dance pretty for the meter reader.
I didn’t need to change anyone’s narrative but my own.
Thank you CL for giving us the words and ideas for our new narrative!
“I wasn’t perfect, but I was faithful and I sure as hell deserved better than this guy.”
I feel this SO much. Except substitute girl for guy 🙂
Best Regards had a non-narrative about me. He discarded me overnight, so for him it seemed to be a lot more about pretending I didn’t exist than pushing a narrative about how terrible I was. Seriously, he would just show up to social events with Schmoopie instead of me, when people didn’t even know we were separated, and pretend like nothing had happened, like he had just popped my head off his favorite Barbie and popped hers on instead. And he would dare people to say anything about it. If they did, as far as I know, he would answer along the lines of, “I was unhappy in the marriage for a long time, and I kept telling Okupin, but she wanted to hang on to the marriage because of her values. We tried therapy, too, but it didn’t work, so finally I just had to leave so I could be happy. And then lo and behold I met Schmoopie, and I’m so happy now. But Okupin is a great person, and I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Of course big chunks of this were lies, or white lies, but the mind-f*ck part was how he just sought to erase me. And a non-narrative is weirdly hard to revise. It took me quite a while to learn to articulate myself again. For a while I just did everything that he and I used to do–bike, climb, travel, etc.–and just tell myself, “See, I can be the same person I was with him without him.” But then after a while, I was like, “Wait a minute…I don’t even want to be that person anymore.” And then there was a rocky period of sorting out how much of who I was was me and how much was the extension of Best Regards’s ego. Tricky stuff, that. It’s only now, nearly 5 years out, that I’m starting to be able to tell myself and the people around me a story about myself that seems authentic. I was at meh quite a while ago, but getting into a positive space in my life has taken longer….
That’s my experience too- only I’m back a ways from where you are.
It’s so true- pulling heads of barbies and swapping them.
It’s like I’ve been shoved on to a different time line and my whole life has vanished.
Not a single word has ever been said.
Not one.
I distinctly remember XAss telling me that I will never be able to take care of myself. That I’d never do “X” again without him around to make it happen.
When I left him 8 years ago I was making less than 20k a year. I have now doubled plus that amount and am on track to jump another salary level this summer. And I’ve been taking myself on (affordable) small adventures and getting out and doing the things he said I’d never be able to do without him. Guess what shitwhit? I not only am doing those things, but I’m doing them on my own without a ‘man’ to ‘help’ me.
Life is pretty good. Now just gotta land my own place and I’m in gravy.
I have really struggled with this. I am almost 14 weeks from D day and the end of my four year relationship. I have come a long way but I have literally made myself sick trying to outrun the narrative of my failings (my weight, level of fitness, housekeeping).
Thre are things I want to accomplish for my own wellbeing (decluttering, fitness) but there is a background war going on in my head where I am haunted by his judgements of me. And WTH do I care? I don’t respect a lying liar who lies. He gutted me during and immediately after my father’s death, in a perfect alignment with the FW playbook. But nevertheless the head games still go in in my head.
I have taken some positive steps to reclaim the empowered singlehood I embodied before I got involved with sleazebag. I reclaimed my favorite hiking trail by going up there with my dog just 3 weeks post d day. Two weeks ago I reclaimed the Olympic peninsula on another trip with my dog. I didn’t want to go alone. My friend was supposed to meet us but she was sick and had to cancel. I went anyway. These trips were painful but also great. I wrote in my journal that it was awesome to go on a trip alone again without him showing up in a bad mood and turning the road trip into a frenzy of anxiety and terror. His anxiety was so bad it was like a third party in our relationship.
I see now that I am healing in phases. At first I was in a 24 7 ptsd response, nonstop anxiety. Planning the trip was fun. Since I got back I have felt a deep sadness and depression. I believe the anxiety was masking this. And I can handle it! I am just feeling it, writing about it in my journal, trying to keep my focus on my own amazing life that I built mindfully before I ever crossed paths with fw.
One of the most difficult aspects of it all had been internalizing his judgements, and feeling deep shame and blaming myself. I am working woth all of it.
Big love to all my chump sisters and brothers! This community has helped me immensely. May we all live our own empowered narratives.
This is a beautiful story. The only thing I do miss is hiking with cheater. Its hard to go alone into.the woods so may have to look.for a hiking buddy
I can’t afford a dog as that would be ideal. Otherwise I remind myself I WAS NOT LOVED and at my.age 71, he would have left me if I ever got sick or needed him to be there for ME.He kept me as long as I was making money, caring for his elderly 94 year old father for 30 years(mentally ill and in need of help all the time)and to take care of his children. I don’t regret all the care I gave because I could love and feel. He has zero heart and zero feelings except fake tears and a reptilian stare. I.lost .nothing.
That’s all so recent – take extra good care of yourself. You will move past it, even if you’re never “over it.” But for now, make sure you’re being extra good to yourself, as much as you can allow. Big love right back!
You’re doing great! Keep on doing it – I think doing things is the key. Not only for distraction from the sadness and pain, but to rebuild yourself. The kinds of things you are doing are so important for reclaiming yourself from the 4 year head job you went through, thank God it wasn’t more! Keep remember the things you used to enjoy and explore new things you may have wanted to do but couldn’t do with FW. You’ll keep gaining strength and come out of this an even better, stronger person!
I had to get out in the world to realize that Imma a stock that trades pretty high. I was beat down pretty bad from 2 decades of gaslighting and abuse. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the male population in fact did not find me to be a bridge troll.
I’ve said maybe 2 things to FW in the past 3 years in this regard. Not related to his devalue of me, but one that stands out for me that I kinda giggle at myself over was when we got into a heated exchange about him not paying his half of medical/school/sports expenses. He made the comment that he paid mortgage payments on our house for 16 years and I responded with, “Yes and you were fucking hookers and had to give it to me!” He likes to play the victim that he gave me everything in the divorce out of the goodness of his heart. But I changed the FW narrative that no, you gave me everything because I caught you with hookers! He still adamantly denies hookers, but I saw one of them with my own eyes and took a picture of her… The were randos and business acquaintances too. If we would have gone to trial, I would have been awarded everything anyways.
I have been no contact with XH, so I doubt if I am changing the cheater’s narrative – in his head – about me.
BUT, I have changed the false narrative that grew in my head since I married him – 36 years ago. That narrative went: “I’m not good-looking, I’m too ugly for anyone to want me. I don’t like sex, I am not attractive enough. I am socially awkward. I don’t have friends. I am not social. I don’t like going to bars. I am too quiet. I’m too old fashioned.”
Reading LACGAL in 2018 really caught me by surprise. I loved the part where CL said something like: “I was at my wedding. I showed up. I enjoyed the reception. I gave our marriage 100%.” I began to realize that I, too, had been 100% all in – at our wedding, during the years before children, and during the years with children and as they began to leave the house. It was XH that was not “all in” – he was always half out, seeing/paying for someone else on business trips & after work.
My narrative began to change to: “I was actually pretty then, and not bad looking now. I did not enjoy sex with him, EVER, because he was selfish and only wanted to please himself & use me. I am quiet and it is ok to be quiet. I get the work done and enjoy my few, close friends. I enjoy my hobbies. I raised wonderful children while he was gone on business trips. I really don’t like bars, but give me a coffeehouse in the morning, with a guitar soloist. I am not socially awkward; he took advantage of my fear to put me down. I believe in monogamy and wanted that for my marriage.”
This new narrative has been getting stronger the longer I am away from him. It’s been 3 years since I moved out, and almost 3 for the divorce. Incidentally, the narrative in my head about him has changed too, but I guess that’s for another day.
We are twins.32 years with one cheater 14 with the other. I have done well.and am at peace. No man will ever define me again. Books, coffee house, walks, close friends ,grand children..no sex ever again as I had an addict already…I’m thrilled to be finding me.
With divorce settlement negotiations in progress, it’s all still so raw and recent for me. I haven’t changed his narrative at all. His is and always has been that he was hacked, and he’s “not a monster”, and that everyone knows that I have unresolved mental issues and I left him because I am making this all up and there is something wrong with me. And mayyyyybe I am having an affair!
My narrative is in essence the same as Alabama’s Dianne Bentley (I just discovered her story yesterday and have been obsessively reading about it): that I personally took screenshots and photos of eX’s icloud texts soliciting prostitutes and discussing plans for dinners together, meeting locations, payment amounts and sex. Oh and also that eX was emotionally, psychologically and sexually abusing me during the marriage.
I’ve been asserting my self-worth to myself from Day 1 of discovery. I know that I was an amazing wife and mother. I know that I was faithful for 34 years of marriage and I kept my vows. And I was longsuffering before I knew that his other behaviors, were abuse. I know I’m a damn high quality woman. My narrative is eX is a disgusting p.o.s. and I am a beautiful treasure.
I did not know how badly abused I was. When I broke my silence there were gasps.
YOU ARE A QUALITY WOMAN.
My attorney told me that several times. I was handling myself with dignity, and there wasn’t a spot of dirt that opposing counsel and my STBX could dig up. It just wasn’t there.
On my STBX’s side…oh, my. That would have been a colorful trial, but we settled. I just wanted to close the chapter, and I did.
I think the truth is so often revealed well after divorce when you no longer cover up for his nature and behavior just by existing as his spouse. A good – hell, GREAT! – spouse can cover up so much for a loser just by doing all those things of life that FW doesn’t do or fails at. Once the divorce happens and each is on his/her own….then the truth comes out because of the choices each makes and the resulting way of life. So many cheaters over time, esp if they are older, slide down hill whereas a good spouse either stays stable or improves over time. Good choices and good habits generally lead to good results.
So true. My health has never been better. I laugh way more and love my work and my friends. I speak up for myself. I’m real.
“Good choices and good habits generally lead to good results.”
Bears repeating.
Unlike Pinocchio whose nose grew with every lie, the Limited’s lies somehow caused his dick to shrink. That narrative had a life of its own and was outrageous. So much so that healthy women were turned off. And thus why he snagged a needy ho who clung to all the future faking illusions.
He couldn’t get anywhere with me as I was supposedly an addict and drunk. Adult children and granddaughter all were surprised when Nancy Pig declared my faults which included a sex less marriage. Mom, you rarely drink and never took drugs. And for Gods sake he took his young children to OW houses when they were young.
Can’t change a pathological liar’s narrative. Living better, getting raises and supporting myself kind of highlighted his inadequacies. A comical narrative emerged, I never forgave him for being a serial cheater.
I find his choices landed him the justice no words could describe. His family asked if I was still living in my home and appeared surprised that I could retire. And yet still he’s broke after five moves post divorce. His family and adult children know he’s an alcoholic who appears to no be a real boy. Surprisingly, nothing makes her happy. How long can one fake orgasms!
Living my best life laughing.
To me, what Orlando is saying is that asserting her truth about the marriage, through the photo evidence it’s hard to deny, was not about changing HIS view or narrative, but confirming HERS which was undoubtedly eroded through years of dealing with an FW. Sometimes you need to see the truth to help confirm that what you thought was true all these years….was true all these years. It may also be helpful to show this to other people as well. The way gaslighting so often works is that the side with the loudest and most aggressive voice (as well as the most convenient story to believe for bystanders) tends to dominate and win. It’s always good to have documented proof of the truth if you can get it.
Here’s a question for y’all. How many people don’t really want to be married even from the start but maybe do it to prop themselves up or because it seems like….the thing to do? I’m wondering if this is something that can be picked out from the start of a relationship so it doesn’t get any further…..so many of them complain about never wanting to be married or have kids. Maybe these people need to be weeded out from the start from the partner pool…..
You are asking a lying liar that lies to tell you the truth so you can weed them.out. Really?
People who list deception as a positive life skill and those who don’t like or value women/men like to have others as props in their lives and a cute little scenario like marriage to fool others into thinking they’re fine upstanding folk.
They treat their wife/ husband like an old armchair they can fall back into when they need to but is just left to gather dust in a corner of the room in the interim
Yep, I remember not long after the year of discard started (it was right after he got his promotion) that I noticed a difference in how he was acting towards me. I noticed it to the point that I talked to him about it, I told him it felt like he was keeping me on a shelf and taking me out when needed. He denied it and blamed it on his new job stress.
See if he had any sense of morals he would have then confessed and we could have D’d or worked it out, but no he still needed me in place. My guess is he was timing his bolt for right after the next election which was in two years. Unfortunately someone filed a complaint by the end of the year and he had to act.
Oh yes… we definitely feel it, don’t we?
The old gut instinct is right on.
What a stupid man. Someone as – if nothing else – USEFUL as you obviously were and are, could have continued to be so. To want to just dump you for the sad sack you’ve told us about….he’s just effing stupid, susie. I think you were one of the champion chumps that most of the people here have been, who kept these FWs propped up and smelling sweet sometimes for DECADES, and they thought it was THEM. Until they left and now it’s pretty obvious who was the real factor behind all the family achieved over the years. FWs are classic manipulators – NOT BUILDERS – and I think most when left to their own devices, just continue the manipulation but they have nobody behind them now to make it real. You need a builder too…..not just a salesman.
Honestly I thought we were building a life together, so I didn’t really see a lot of it until after the fall. But, I won’t lie, when I saw his demotion in the newspaper; it put a lift in my mood for a few hours. I knew then that it was the beginning of his descent from there.
It didn’t have to go that way, but his choice.
So my FW would do all the blame shifting, projecting, gaslighting, deflecting, etc., that all cheaters do, and I finally got to the point where I would just put my hand up and say, “I wasn’t the cause of your infidelity and choice to cheat, that was 100% you.” I would say it with a flat, matter of fact tone, and just leave it at that. It really shut him down. There is nothing he could say to that, because it’s blatantly true.
You do get to the point of knowing your value eventually, that you did nothing wrong and it was all them. You get to the Meh! I’m with CL here…don’t even give them the kibbles of “hey, I’m amazing”, because you aren’t to them. They proved that by cheating. Cheaters won’t get their head around the “look what you lost” campaign your trying to sell, because they were more than willing to give you up, and DID! They showed you that you mean NOTHING to them. Just forget the are alive and go about your life! That is the BEST way to get at them. THAT is the only thing that drives them nuts, is to show you don’t care about them!
Married at 23, divorced at 32. I’m in my 70’s and have started a project to sort through all my photos and digitize them.
I’ve been at meh a long time about leaving the alcoholic cheater.
But going through those photos of me as a 19 year old was eye-opening. I always thought I was a very plain, nearly homely woman and grateful that he was okay marrying someone so plain. I kind of have vague memories of thinking it was okay if he flirted with so and so because she had the breasts I’d never have. I was grateful I was married to such a charming man who was the life of the party.
In particular I did not recognize a photo of this beautiful woman. I could see a family resemblance, but when I asked my sister who it was, I was surprised to be told it was me. The 19 year old me was stunning sometimes.
I get this totally, Emma. I think the cheater’s way of devaluing you is so subtle, and it’s often an omission of what is normal. When trying to identify what’s wrong in a relationship, it’s easy to state the things that are seen and heard vs stating what is missing. The XH cheater I had was also an alcoholic & loved parties, as long as food & booze was there. But he was missing an ability to have the real friendship & respect spouses would normally have with each other. This often left me to try to enjoy the party alone, with people who were problem drinkers. If I didn’t enjoy the party & told him so, he said how much HE did. It was often combined with talk about “trophy wives” or “high maintenance women.”
But back then, everyone he worked with seemed to enjoy him a lot – he could talk about sports or current events & he aligned himself with whoever he was talking with.
I look back at photos of me too & wonder why I thought I was ugly.
Dickhead McCluggage has the advantage of being in the country we lived in and in the same small town he grew up in and never left.
He fancies himself a sizeable fish in a small pond and has certainly spread enough bullshit in the local pub to sustain a large market garden.
Unfortunately for him, the small pond has grown markedly since he grew up and most have no idea who he or his family are.
Others know the family well, but it’s more notoriety than being well liked- they’re known for ripping folk off- I found out he’s got quite the reputation as a proficient liar and blowhard.
Most he works with, drinks at the pub with and does his scout stuff with have no idea who he really is or what he’s done in the past or what he’s up to currently.
He doesn’t know I know what he’s said about me and I’ve gotten rid of all ‘friends and family’ who were stupid enough to listen instead of asking me.
I can’t wait until he tries his poor victim tactics on the judge.
Right before we walked together into our son’s wedding reception, I told him I was the best thing that happened to him.
Felt so empowering to see his jaw drop and no time to respond.
HAH!!
Haha!!
I might have to try that later in the month when my boy gets married 😆.
The major step was coming to accept that what she did and said is wrong and that it was not my fault. That permitted what has come next.
Which was the space for growth. The energy that I used to invest into trying to “win” her over Schmoopie has gone right back into me(for the most-family and work issues sponge a fair amount). Trying to win that beast over and killing myself for a future together she didn’t want was quite stifling both personally and creatively. In dealing with the trauma I am evaluating the messages that she gave me about my self worth and have been disarming them, one by one.
Some of that has been learning that I have nothing to fear in being myself. Whoever I lose is whoever I lose and probably wasn’t going to be good for me anyway.
I do a lot with self affirmation anymore.
In a lot of ways, it’s returning to a more evolved version of what I was when she and I met. I thought she was encouraging those good parts of me. I doubt I will ever know if that was real or not.
And I am addressing my own codependence. I tied far too much self worth up into her and her very skewed narrative about the world. I didn’t go for a rebound relationship just to get my mind off of all 13 years of her(Gods know I thought about it…) I have friends trying to set me up with people-I know I’m not ready to be good FOR them. Because I’m not all the way good for ME yet, either.
I want to be my best, strongest self. And I am getting there. The next time I go “pick me” there will be no dance.
My experience involved betrayal by multiple parties, including a “friend” and family members in addition to FW, so it was really hard to not feel like I was the problem. The gaslighting and blame shifting were so intense and on all sides that I became at risk of self-harm and spent a week in the hospital.
While the hospital treatment was not at all helpful, the time alone to process my experience was. When I came out, I had developed two mantras:
“I’m going to make this the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“I will no longer justify why my feelings are important to people who say they love me.”
I came home and started getting rid of anything that reminded me of the affair. FW started to whinge, and I just said it hurt me to look at them. If he tried to change my mind, I would ask, “What use do you have for this that is important enough to hurt me for?”
He was floored, because I had never stood up for myself like that. Now, several years on, I am thriving, because I take very little guff and don’t entertain people who are willing to bulldoze over my feelings to get what they want. Next that shite.
Traitor Ex is doing all the heavy lifting changing the narrative. I don’t have to get my hands dirty. Clean hands reinforce my position as the wronged party, so I do my utmost to keep my hands and my side of the street clean. This does not mean shying away from sharing facts and truth.
He is currently the proud owner of an illicit Asian massage parlor and escort service with the Craigslist cockroach. It can now be safely assumed they met in a massage parlor, and that divorce was 150% a good idea. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Velvet Hammer is an active informant working with various law enforcement agencies, anti-human trafficking special ops, and Homeland Security (the Craigslist cockroach is a Chinese national, immigration status unknown) and willing to go to any lengths to nail the MOFOs to the cross.
Somehow they recently scrubbed the lone one-star very negative Google review (someone who obviously thought they were paying for legitimate massage therapy and got skunked) and posted two five-star reviews they had written themselves. Gee, if this is such a great place, why aren’t there more Google reviews? Because their customers don’t leave Google reviews; they post their reviews AMP locator sites. (“AMP” stands for “Asian massage parlor” according to the dictionary of prostitution terms. “MM” is a term used for describing breasts and stands for “man made”, as in “implants”. I’m learning a lot recently).
They can’t even tell the truth about their own organized crime operation.
Their own behavior tells on them. You just have to be patient.
Wow! Eeew I truly hope those roaches get exposed big time. How awful for the young sex trafficking victims who get groomed, drugged & face every kind of abuse and destruction. May these horrible jerks rot in the darkest muddiest crocodile infested swamps.
I don’t know what lies and justifications my ex spews for those who will listen, but I have a pretty good idea because these cheaters aren’t original. So “unmet needs” and “I wasn’t happy for a long, long time” must get trotted out to convince his audience and himself that he is actually a really good person who made “one mistake” and lied about “only one thing”…for years!
Whatevs…
He can say whatever the hell he wants. Those who believe him can have him. My true friends and family believe me, and that’s all that counts. I keep my side of the street clean. I live a good life. I don’t lie or cheat. I value my good character.
NC = “no contact” and “not caring.”
Therein lies happiness.
And remember: Trust that he sucks; and it sucks to be him (or them, in the case of my ex and OW-now-wife who is also a cheater). No tag backs.
Marrying a second cheater 2 years after my first cheater was probably the worst for my validation index. I had 2 men who figured out I needed them to tell me who I was. That would be like me asking the.creepy fox who was guarding the chicken coop how my feathers looked. Aren’t I cute, I’m so fluffy! NEVA ask a cheater for ANY kind of feedback on you/ me. NEVER! SO the fox says yes you are still pretty and nice ha!!- they are looking for drum sticks, they could care less about you as a person. So yes I changed the narrative to say to MYSELF, you are kind, you are good and at every mirror 🪞 I say I LOVE YOU ❤️ YOU’VE been through hell with cheaters,now look to yourself for value and validation. No man will ever have to put a USDA GRADE A stamp on my rump to say I’m good enough. They DO NOT CARE. But I do care . I have new friends now, after losing all the last of my Switzerland family and friends …..and they hold me up too. I only keep people close to me who truly love me. No one else can get to my heart of gold again 💔 =💛
I told people the truth, or as much of it as I knew. I told friends and family members, as I chose to do so, that he had been betraying and cheating on me for decades. I told them about his lies, what he did (not in great detail), but enough info, and answered their questions as they asked them. So, for example, when they asked where he did these things, I listed as many cities as I knew about at the time I was talking with them (the list was long and kept growing). When they asked me about how many people, again, I told them about as many as I knew of at the time. I didn’t typically use names, unless their was a reason to do so. Instead, I would say something like, “The first prostitute in SFO,” or “The prostitute in the historic Georgetown townhome that he purchased for over 20 years.” I was as specific as possible to keep it all straight, but honestly, there were so many that it was hard to do that. I was calm about it, and since I am a very articulate, educated, and classy woman, it was not hard to control the narrative. In additon, I was (and still am) quite attractive, fit, and an all-round a better catch than the FW, it wasn’t difficult for folks to see that he had abandoned an absolute treasure for so many piles of trash. This was one area I didn’t struggle with–his many choices to betray with complete garbage made that easy for me.
After decades of marriage, I was shell-shocked by the discovery on his online affair with a catfisher and and literally brain injured by a subsequent beating that knocked me unconscious. While I sequestered myself at home with our child to to try to pull myself together, FW moved in with our closest (now my former) friends and systematically sought out our other friends and congregation, invited them to out lunch and dinner, and told incredible lies about me (negative) and himself (positive). He said that when I learned he was giving advice to an online colleague, I became violent, was waving a gun around, and was dangerous to anyone who approached me, so to stay away. Then COVID started, and I didn’t realize how isolated I’d become until I realized that our church leaders were afraid of me, and they told me what he’d been saying.
Fortunately, back when I discovered his online affair, I immediately–literally within minutes–forwarded the emails and photos to a new account I created for myself. Later, I printed out all 500 sheets of paper of them, plus I found evidence (wire transfer slips, bank transfers, etc.) proving he’d sent tens of thousands of dollars to this person.
I was able to show literally a thousand pages of evidence that what he said was untrue.
Only a few people were willing to look at it, but they were the ones who counted–our church leaders, our child’s therapist (who then recommended no contact followed by supervised visits) and a few friends. As far as police were concerned, it was “he said, she said,” and moot. But he also did terrible things to our child, and as a result of his false reports to Child Protective Services about me, they investigated, as did the Parental Responsibilities Evaluator appointed by the court to determine custody. Both recommended permanent no contact with child, and FW agreed.
The real change of narrative was in my own head: realizing that he’d always been selfish, self-centered, and psychologically abusive. (The beating was the second physical abuse to me, but I discovered physical and mental abuse to child.) I looked into his self-serving claims, and discovered they were untrue. For example, by contacting the registrars I learned that he not only did not have MBAs from Harvard and Dartmouth, he’d never applied, registered or attended class. He was not even a runner up to the international award he claimed to win twice. There were many more lies, and for a while I shared them, And I’d mention that BTW, I won and could prove winning literally dozens of national awards in my field, including some that are well known by the public and were presented on national TV broadcasts. He, of course, had always ignored or actively downplayed my accomplishments, and I had not brought them up myself.
There was another change of narrative with the child, once child disclosed that abuse. Until then, I had been positive and supportive about child’s relationship with Ex. I was fortunate that there’s no contact, because I can’t imagine having to continue to try to remain positive or even neutral after what I’d learned. Yes, there was convincing evidence. Child had kept silent due to Ex’s threats to harm me if child disclosed. Now I have to help him change his narrative, because he was devastated by what was done to him.
I gave up on trying to change anything. I think a huge jump forward in my healing was when I completely stopped giving a shit what anybody was saying and just cut everyone off. Let them think whatever they want of me. I told one person, “just pretend I killed myself. Think of what a story you’ll have to gossip about and you’ll get so much pity and attention for it!”
I walked away. They can do and say and think whatever they want. I just don’t care. There was a whole lot of pain leading up to that point but eventually, it was like a fuse burnt out. I give zero fucks now.
“a huge jump forward in my healing was when I completely stopped giving a shit what anybody was saying and just cut everyone off.” 💯💯💯
PERIOD! Quickest road to Meh is to just snip, snip. ✂️✂️
I did absolutely nothing to change the cheater’s narrative about me! I fart in their general direction and DGAF. 🤣
Highly recommend it, too. See, I took that lawyerly advice not to talk to anyone else about the ongoing litigations, and not to say anything disparaging etc. I simply dropped anyone weird who wanted to be Switzerland and/or didn’t know which one of us to believe. Which, unfortunately, eventually included my entire maternal side. Been no contact with those hoes for about 3 years now, divorced about 8.
Crucially, I let people show me who they were, and believed them the first time. The payoff for me has been P-E-A-C-E. The select few in my life are reciprocal and GET IT.
I actually just legally changed my last name to Fierce last month. Time to redefine who the fuck I am.
There are two narratives. There’s nothing to change, really. People either buy one or the other and there’s nothing you can do about it. Waste of breath and time.
I listened to the advice here. It’s not my fault she cheated. I didn’t deserve to be treated like that. There is no excuse good enough. Keep telling me why it’s my fault and it just makes me realize how sick you are.