I Can’t Find the Courage to Tell Her I’m Leaving
He’s finally found the courage to get a divorce, but not the courage yet to tell her he’s leaving. They rug-swept her history of cheating, so it’s going to come as a shock.
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Dear Chump Lady,
My wife cheated on me with a coworker about four years ago. You’ve probably heard similar stories of chumps like me. I was one of the chumps who stayed after levels of disrespect I didn’t think were possible.
She slept around, watched me beg and sob for her to come home. She made a list of demands to improve the relationship. Then she cried because she lost a relationship with her affair partner. And then she cried because she ruined our relationship.
She “didn’t remember” when pressed on specifics from me.
She went to her affair partner’s birthday like a week after sleeping with him and coming back. I was numb. I let her walk all over me and disrespect me and violate any sense of boundaries I had.
Later, I told our families and she was upset. Even more so when I told her and my family that the child she got pregnant with wasn’t mine.
You’d have thought I would have left. I couldn’t do it.
I kept trying to fix her and get her to see that she gutted me.
Over the years the worst thing has happened, it’s been swept under the rug. I’ve been suppressing all of my frustrations for years to the point I once again went through her phone. I found nudes she sent to two people (one a girl, the other a random guy she sent it to “on accident”). She also was venting about me and my suspicions of her to a guy friend. She sent screenshots of my chats with her to him.
I realize that I’ve become cold and angry with her. I’ve had a poop tsunami that started with me not loving or respecting myself enough to leave. Fast forward, I’ve started divorce paperwork and I got an apartment.
I STILL can’t seem to tell her I am leaving.
I see my own toxic patterns in the relationship and I’m left feeling like I’m a huge problem. Please talk me off the ledge here, so to speak.
Sincerely,
MajorChump
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Dear MajorChump,
We have attorneys for exactly this problem. They issue divorce summons.
You mentioned an apartment and divorce paperwork, so I assume you’ve seen an attorney? I’m not a lawyer and I can’t give legal advice, but you really should talk to a legal professional before you do anything that could affect children and shared property. Especially, as you have a complicated paternity situation. I can, however, address chumpiness.
Look, you do not owe your cheater an explanation for leaving.
You’ve been trying to get her to feel your pain for years. Now it’s time for her to feel some pain. Those are CONSEQUENCES. She earned that pain. You did not.
I kept trying to fix her and get her to see that she gutted me.
She doesn’t have an insight problem. She has an entitlement problem. You could give her a whole PowerPoint presentation on why you’re leaving and she would resist understanding it. Because that would threaten her entitlement.
You, being a chump, may misconstrue her distress as an indication that she cares. Oh NOW she gets it! She sees I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME! Cue the reconciliation unicorns.
Don’t leave because you want her attention. Leave because you’re sick of this sh*t.
She slept around, watched me beg and sob for her to come home. She made a list of demands to improve the relationship.
Yeah, like you’re the problem? And she’s some great prize? REJECT that mindf*ckery! Your “relationship” didn’t make her send naughty pix to randos. Her lousy character did. She can take her list and shove it.
Then she cried because she lost a relationship with her affair partner. And then she cried because she ruined our relationship.
You’re not a consolation prize. She needs to sort out her complicated love rhombus on her own.
I’m glad you’re finally leaving.
Later, I told our families and she was upset. Even more so when I told her and my family that the child she got pregnant with wasn’t mine.
On the one hand, you beat yourself up for rug-sweeping, on the other hand, you beat yourself up for telling.
YOU DID NOT MAKE THIS PROBLEM.
Zoom out. You were put in an impossible situation. The only winning move is to quit the game and leave. Which I why I wrote about book about this and a blog and named it “LEAVE a cheater, gain a life.”
It’s not all about her. Even as she goes through life acting like it is, this is also YOUR STORY. You are allowed to tell your story and advocate for yourself and decide that you don’t like living in a “poop tsunami.” You’re allowed to seek shelter in a separate apartment and a divorce summons. That doesn’t make you f*cked up, okay?
I see my own toxic patterns in the relationship and I’m left feeling like I’m a huge problem.
It’s admirable to own your own issues, but please start seeing this through the lens of abuse. Serial cheating is abuse. Double lives are abuse. None of us expect abuse in our relationships. And there’s an entire industry out there of marriage counselors (the Reconciliation Industrial Complex) encouraging us to work it out with bad actors.
It’s totally normal to regret not leaving sooner. But have some compassion for yourself when you think of the begging — you were BONDED. You were a normal, loving soul who fought for a person you loved. You grieved. That makes you human. Let go of the shame, okay?
Please talk me off the ledge here, so to speak.
Stop thinking of it as a ledge and start seeing it as a new life.
It’s so much better on the other side. Don’t go back.
When you LOVE you beg, you bargain, you try. YOU have a lot to lose, the cheater, not so much. They only have to lose Kibbles and there are cheap cheater kibbles around every corner. Then you may get attached to other men’s babies!! Because you CARED. It’s hard to care and love and. Bond, but you are bonded to an android. Crying is standard acting , it is not from heartbreak or sorrow like yours. Find. A lawyer, start there. Get into counseling for the special chump you are. I did all you did and then got it done because I saw behind the mask. It was shocking as the mask dropped. I know a 76 year old man who stayed with his cheater and raised her OMs baby. He’s still crying with no peace. Don’t be him.
The only “toxic patterns” I see in your relationship are your wife’s. I hope you aren’t blaming yourself for your own response to her actions, which are out and out abusive, and which condition you to respond in ways that are counter to your mental health. Instead of seeing your need to leave without telling her as a fault, see it as the rational choice you must make given the conditions she herself has created in your relationship. And if you still have trouble thinking that you’re somehow at fault because you aren’t telling her, consider the fact that not only did she act in secret in having an affair, she is still acting in secret after telling your that she’s “trying.”
Wow, I could have written this one…all I can say is it’s so much better when you’ve finally have had enough and do something to save yourself!
I’m 6 months from divorce from a serial cheater…I tried so hard to keep a bad marriage together..I “lost” years!
I’m 68, single, retired and very happy. I need to change my username from “broken” to “unbroken”.
MajorChump, do you have any emotional support? i.e., family you can talk to, a best friend, a support group? In my experience, it takes a lot of counter-programming to really absorb that YOU are not the problem.
I say this because — and I am sorry to tell you — she will hoover. She’s the type to hoover. So, in addition to the apartment and the lawyer, you really need emotional support because she will turn the manipulation way up when she realizes you’re serious. I don’t know any chump who can face that without backup. Read all the posts here about hoovering, so you can be prepared. Every cheater behaves in a textbook way, so you have the advantage of knowing what’s coming.
Godspeed on the divorce. You don’t have to tell her anything! Just move!
(Curious if she gave birth to the child? If so, make sure the lawyer helps with that. Laws vary by state on your position there.)
A friend of mine just won an Oscar for Best Sound for the movie F1, a handy combination of two situations applicable here.
One does not make a movie alone, ergo, one does not win an Oscar by oneself. His response to my congratulatory text message was to credit those on the sound team who made the achievement great.
In racing, drivers have pit crews and sponsors.
I have a pit crew that I used to leave my MIRAGE (I did not have a marriage. I had a mirage.)
Great therapist. Trusted friends. Lawyer. 12 step meetings. Counselors from local domestic violence prevention organization.
And Chump Lady and everyone here.
Get your pit crew together, dear friend. We need ASSISTANCE with getting out.
♥️
Hi Major Chump:
I think I know how you feel. When you leave, you have to be ready for everything to get ten times worse before it gets better. You have to be ready for lawyers and family court and depositions and hemorrhaging money, and for craziness and hostility (and in my case, potential homicide) from your soon to be ex partner. I gave my marriage everything I had, and was so depleted and worn out that getting the energy to leave and to face even more chaos seemed insurmountable.
Divorcing a narcissist is hard, and I mean hard as in climbing Everest. I’ve sent $120k so far because he violates all rules, lies and delays, exactly as he was in the marriage. It is a nightmare.
But I can tell you this, from the bottom of my heart, that as hard and painful as it is to climb out of the pit, bloody and bruised and carrying your shattered heart like a wounded bird that was shot from the sky, that there is only one thing worse.
And that is staying.
You are so wise to have told people the truth of your situation. I suspect that when you leave, the people who love you will express their support and relief, and show up at yoru new apartment with food, love and support. I look forward to that for you, and wish you godspeed on this painful journey.
Hi all,
I wanted to say thank you for your support and advice. I just recently moved out on my own, and it has been a whirlwind of emotions. I feel so much less stress. As soon as I left, it was like the facade my stbxw had was gone, and she was as cold as she was when she cheated.
I have struggled with loneliness and the silence that comes with it. I don’t miss her, but I do miss going to sleep next to someone. It’s quite an odd feeling. I can’t spend more than 5 minutes around her without wanting to throw up because of how messed up her thinking is.
I had wanted to try and protect my reputation and not be seen as the villain, but I gave up on that pretty quickly after moving out. It is what it is at this point.
I’m still trying to balance my life to find new hobbies and passions. I work in a corporate job and most of my time is devoted to that job. I have somehow managed to get promoted at work throughout all of this poop tsunami, but that’s besides the point. Thank you for your advice and your book, which gave me hope that life could be better.
Sincerely,
Major chump
I have found that my four cats (acquired post divorce) are far superior bedfellows to my ex husband. I sleep surrounded by warm, snuggly piles of fur instead of next to an angry man who lied to, cheated on, and abused me.
This might sound crazy but I know a lot of chumps who have adopted dogs who are great for snuggles and need your love and attention. Rebound relationships with humans are a loser but pet rescue is a winner for those who can do it.
Another good thing is to engage in new activities you never tried before. Forming new memories that don’t include the FW helps push the FW back in the gray matter. Practice a language new to you. Pick up a new instrument. Do a crossword puzzle. Go to a new park or beach. Try cooking a new food. Anything NEW will fire up the neurons in a new direction. It will also give you exciting things to talk about for new friends you will make along the way.
It’s easy to get hung up in the uncomfortable liminal space between deciding to make a big change and the closed-door confrontation of telling the not always reasonable person that things are done.
It’s hard for us to hurt people we have spent a big part of our lives with, even if they hurt us. Even if it’s for the best for us. Choosing ourselves feels selfish, as if we were inflicting even more hardship and pain on the entire family. It’s easier for the family to point at the one who is walking away, even though you are not the one who broke things. You are simply accepting that they are broken and taking on the cleanup.
But the harm has already happened. The building is on fire, it’s now just time to face it. You didn’t cause this. Even if you weren’t a perfect spouse. There are healthy ways to handle relationship issues. Talking to your partner. Marital counseling. Individual therapy. Separation. None of this involves an affair.
I felt a lot of fear when I told my Ex I was leaving. Fear of the reaction, of the confrontation. So I kept building my own off-ramp until it was unavoidable. I kept picturing life afterwards. A peaceful place of my own. No more fights. No more walking out for a glass of water and catching them up late messaging people on Fetlife.
Just me, my cats, curled up with tea on the couch, and watching the snow fall. Finally able to move into the town near my family that I always wanted to be in. My new hobbies. How my space would look. The relief of not wondering who or what I was coming home to.
Hold that peace as an end goal, know that the stress of the confrontation is finite. Ending a relationship should be the kindness of a swift, efficient cut so you can move on. The relationship is already over; you’re just ending the dragged-out suffering.
Do what your lawyer advises, and give yourself permission to do what is right and easiest for YOU without putting her feelings first. It’s good practice.