Is It Cheating If You Were Separated?
Is it cheating if you were separated? He thought they were working on the marriage. She thought it was a good time to date their coworker. He just found out.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I’m 20 months out from D-Day and 6 months out from my divorce. I felt compelled to write because I thought I was getting to ‘Meh,’ but have just had several sleepless nights because of a comment made to me by a trusted friend. His words have left me back in a tail-spin, distressed and feeling back at square one.
My now ex-wife slept with her affair partner (a work colleague) when we were separated.
It was not her first affair. She had an emotional affair in our first year of marriage with her ex, which was the reason we were entering into a separation. It’s hard to know exactly when her physical affair with workplace Schmoopie started. I’d estimate that somewhere between a month or three of separation she began her affair.
We were living separately at the time. We’d both been working with a counsellor and were regularly making verbal affirmations to each other that we would put in the work and that we cared for one another, while also acknowledging that we didn’t know what the future would be like for us.
I’m writing because it took me many months for my mind and body to grapple with her disclosure. I was in shock for 6 months before I even thought to put the words “cheating” or “infidelity” or “betrayal” and “affair” into my vocabulary when talking with close friends about what happened. When these words first came out of my own mouth, I even shocked myself.
Then I thought, “Wow, yes of course, it was an affair. How could I not understand this earlier”?
Prior to these words occurring to me, I explained her behavior as “she’s depressed, she has ADHD, she didn’t get closure, it’s COVID and everyone is mentally injured,” etc. All of which felt sufficient at the time, but woefully lacking once D-Day happened.
When I discovered those words it was a critical turning point in my healing and processing the situation. When I used a betrayal vocabulary, my body felt a sense of relief. My mind felt it had a more stable anchor. It could start answering the daily question of “what just happened to me”?
Later I learned about “betrayal blindness.” It’s when a betrayed partner simply does not “see” the cheating because the mind is unable to grapple with the pain. So it can take months or even years before someone begins to understand that betrayal is actually what happened.
Discovering those words also led to a deep and cathartic certainty and of finding a massive piece of the puzzle of my reality and also the language by which to describe it. This led me to Chump Nation and other support forums. It also played a big part in me finding better therapies and counsellors that dealt with Post Infidelity Stress Disorder. I had it. The infidelity was with a coworker and all three of us worked in the same place, surrounded by people we’d all known for years.
I realized I was a survivor of deception and abuse.
In the months since my divorce was finalized, and since discovering these powerful words of my chump reality, I finally felt like I was getting to that glorious mirage of indifference, of Meh. That is until a friend of mine recently said to me: “Yes, but you were separated at the time she slept with him” Followed up with: “You can’t hate Schmoopie, be careful about characterizing him as evil, because he may have simply been seeing a woman without her wedding rings on. Maybe she told him things were ‘over’ and so his genitals just slipped in and that’s okay. I would do it, you would do it, any man would sleep with a married work colleague if she presented him with all the verbal and non-verbal green lights, like saying she was separated”.
He concluded: “In the eyes of some people, they may not see it as an affair.”
And then my world crashed. Is that true? Are these two people – who I saw as pathologically culpable in deception and a horrifically public humiliation and rejection from which I could not hide – actually just a couple of ordinary people who decided to sleep with one another and it’s actually okay because we were “separated”?
It felt like my friend’s comments had taken away the most significant puzzle piece that my brain was using to understand my reality. In my distress I spent countless hours frantically Googling things like “Does it still count as cheating during a separation?”
I wanted to give my brain back the crutches it was using to walk me away from the car crash of my ex wife’s public flaunting of a her new “boyfriend” as she called him to everyone at work. Where we all worked just meters from one another, in a job I had been in for years and known more than 200 people as colleagues and dozens as friends. Some of these people were even at our wedding. And I’ve been telling these people that we were getting a divorce because “she’s cheating on me with a bloke at work”.
Based on my friend’s comments, I have no right to say “cheated” because we “were separated” at the time. WTF?
Is it still cheating if it happened during a separation?
In my case it was just a few months in, and she told me she was going to work on the marriage — even though none of that ‘work’ materialized into any real action.
I haven’t slept in days,
Sleepless Chump
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Dear Sleepless Chump,
I understand your dilemma. You want to know if you actually have a right to feel aggrieved and traumatized by her deception, or if you’re a controlling ex who can’t accept she’s moved on.
Let’s reject this framework entirely, okay? You justifiably feel what you feel. And it doesn’t matter how anyone else understands infidelity, the only thing that matters is: Is this relationship acceptable to YOU?
You’re the only vote that matters.
Was it okay with you that your ex was having an emotional affair with her ex, immediately after marrying you? Did you sign up for a marriage of pick me dancing? Did you imagine a future of her deep, abiding ambivalence, or were you expecting a commitment?
You answered that question with a divorce summons. No! Not acceptable! Then you offered her the grace of reconciliation — counseling while separated. And once again, she feigned a commitment to you — working on the marriage.
This is the heart of cheating: Letting your chump invest deeply, while keeping one’s options open. One set of rules for thee, another for me.
That is why you feel whipsawed. It’s why you feel cheated. You thought you were both operating under the same set of agreed upon rules, when in fact, she was only operating out of self-interest.
Please quit caring what other people think.
(We’ll get to your odious friend in a moment.) This relationship was NOT ACCEPTABLE TO YOU. You do not need to justify or explain your decision to anyone. And, as I advise with all chump pain, be careful where you spill your feelings. Find a safe community like this one or a decent therapist’s office. People who haven’t experienced it, tend to victim blame. Or say other insensitive things. You don’t need that shit when you’re in the wobbly, early days.
You have a right to the language of chumpdom, because you were chumped. But honestly, even that doesn’t matter. If I had a sprained ankle and the language of alcohol recovery made me feel better, who gives a flip? If it makes the pain go away, GREAT.
Nobody wants to identify as a chump. No one is signing up for this brand, okay? You aren’t playing the victim, you’re heartbroken. You invested deeply in a marriage and she led you to believe — by her actions (marrying you, going to therapy with you) that she was invested too. And even after you realized that your investment was lopsided (her emotional affair), you continued to invest — AND SHE ENCOURAGED THAT.
Counseling while separated isn’t a green light for cheating.
We’d both been working with a counsellor and were regularly making verbal affirmations to each other that we would put in the work and that we cared for one another, while also acknowledging that we didn’t know what the future would be like for us.
This was her opportunity to discuss seeing other people. Or breaking up ethically with you. She chose cake-eating. It was also your opportunity to discuss these things. Perhaps you had betrayal blindness (I call this spackle). Maybe you couldn’t face that wall of pain. I would argue that this burden of disclosure should’ve fallen to the cheater, as your ex-wife was the person who was checked out. And by keeping things murky and all “who knows what the future holds?” it gives her a veneer of “Oh hey, I tried” impression management.
However, we don’t know what the future holds is not “Hey! I’m seeing other people now.” NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. You are not a human decoder ring, okay?
And why the heck didn’t your marriage counselor flesh this out for you? It seems like a pretty obvious question to ask. But I believe you that you thought you were working on the marriage as she was actively exiting the marriage and not telling you. And that mindfuck went on for months. While you all worked together. Ouch.
Now let’s discuss your friend. He’s taking a one-size fits all approach to dating while separated. Separation can mean a lot of things. Personally, I would advise against it because I think in the wobbly early days of break-ups, people are not emotionally available for relationships. But neither do I condemn it, IF there is no cake eating, and you have filed for divorce and are living separately. Especially in those horrible places where you have to wait years before the state will allow you to divorce. (Australia and the state of Virginia come to mind.)
Separation is not synonymous with divorce.
Some people stay married for health benefits, or weird religious reasons, or they live in the Philippines where divorce isn’t available. Separation can also be what you’re describing — a time out to work on the marriage. (If you’d written to me first, I would’ve advised against it. Cake-eaters love unsupervised cake.) But hey, bargaining stage of grief.
She let you invest. You weren’t doing this blindly. You were doing it with her encouragement, under the guidance of a therapist.
“Yes, but you were separated at the time she slept with him”
I was led to believe she wasn’t seeing anyone and we were working on the marriage. I’m not naive to believe in commitments made to me.
“You can’t hate Schmoopie, be careful about characterizing him as evil, because he may have simply been seeing a woman without her wedding rings on. Maybe she told him things were ‘over’ and so his genitals just slipped in and that’s okay. I would do it, you would do it, any man would sleep with a married work colleague if she presented him with all the verbal and non-verbal green lights, like saying she was separated”.
This says a lot about your friend’s world view and it doesn’t sound like you share values. “Any man would sleep with a married coworker” sounds like a sexual misconduct lawsuit waiting to happen. Nonverbal green lights? What, like a short skirt? Has this guy heard of consent? “I’m separated” is not license to fuck someone on the Xerox machine. Dump him for his troglodyte views on the sexes, period.
He concluded: “In the eyes of some people, they may not see it as an affair.”
Who cares? In the eyes of some people, Bob, you look like a sexual workplace predator. Just saying!
But really, who cares? This isn’t a jury trial. You don’t need a consensus. It’s your life. Stop sharing it with fuckwits.
ex wife’s public flaunting of a her new “boyfriend” as she called him to everyone at work. Where we all worked just meters from one another, in a job I had been in for years and known more than 200 people as colleagues and dozens as friends. Some of these people were even at our wedding.
Consider this — everyone can see the timeline. You don’t need to say a thing. A couple years ago, she was flaunting you as her new husband. Now she’s immediately got a new boyfriend. I hope he enjoys competing with her ex, or whatever coworker she’s got lined up next. Let that guy revel in her deep ambivalence.
Meanwhile, consider a new job or transfer to a new location. No contact is the fastest path to meh.
She cheated and you are a chump like us, and it sucks. She lied and used her time to line up another person. Use this time to get healthy, reflect, and get what you can out of the divorce as she will want to move on quickly with the loser.
I live in a state where adultery is still a for-cause reason for divorce, so the attorneys recommend holding off on dating until the divorce is final or at least keeping it very, very public. Of course, these things can drag on and on, but that’s what mine recommended and what I’ve heard from friends who got divorced. Of course, you’ve got to 100% prove it in a trial, but there it is. Despite what I knew, we ultimately settled no fault, and I felt like the terms were fair.
But emotionally? It bugged me that he was dating when we were separated and supposedly working on things, and I didn’t care who told me otherwise. He was living in another state and not seeing a therapist at all. The Holy Spirit and my STBX’s siblings were his counsellors (his exact words). I was seeing a therapist, a life coach, and attending a twelve-step group at various times. Guess who was more emotionally stable overall and healed faster?
I didn’t date until after my divorce, and at this point, I pretty much figure I’ll never pair up again after evaluating the whole situation. I’m fine. Truly.
Thank you Elsie, this resonates for me. I also put myself in personal counselling and coaching believing that if I only was more perfect and better then… maybe then she would fully commit and forget about schmoopie. At that point I hadn’t discovered chumpdome and had no idea what kibles or cake or pick me dancing was…
I divorced in a no-fault state and my lawyer still told me to not date until everything was signed. She said that if negotiations got bad enough that we would have to go to trial (we didn’t, but so close), a new relationship for me could influence the judge’s rulings. Be careful Chumps, and check with your lawyer for everything.
I saw a lawyer post on Social Media that if you want your divorce to take longer and cost more, date before it is finalized.
It was just an observation they had after years of being a divorce lawyer.
I don’t think it applies as much for divorces involving cheating. The idea is that if a couple is splitting up and one is already dating, it might make things more volatile, which leads to more arguing, longer timelines to come to an agreement and higher attorney fees. I think we already have those issues if we were chumped.
But yes, in some places it is considered adultery and that can sway a judge. No one needs that added complication.
On a personal level, you do you, and everyone’s sitution is different, but I would also think that jumping into dating before you are even divorced is not good for YOU emotionally. (again, I recognize that situations vary.)
It’s funny, my FW and his AP broke up as he moved out, so he started on the dating apps as soon as he had his own place. We had not even started the divorce process. I did not care. Him openly dating while we were separated was so much better than his secret soul mate that he had while we were supposedly still happily married that it was kind of a relief. And we were not trying to work things out. The lawyer’s advice still applies here though. Here is what happened:
He started jsut dating lots of women casually. As many as he could match with.After about 6 months of dating every single woman in our state, he met one that stuck. Eight weeks in, they were talking marriage. We STILL hadn’t started the divorce process, but we soon did. (somehow I still had to initiate it) And his dating DID effect the outcome a little.
When we talked about custody, I wanted to set up a holiday schedule. He lost his mind. He didn’t want it spelled out who got the kids for which holidays. He wanted to “wing it”. The thing is, I was afraid of him and was not used to asserting myself. And I knew that if we didn’t have a schedule, he would just bully me into having the kids every holiday. So far, that hadn’t mattered. We did holidays togeher “for the kids sake”. (not recommened) But with a new serious gf in the picture, I knew he would be wanting to spend the holidays with her. And that is totally normal and fine. But if we didn’t split holidays in the divorce order, it would have been a battle for every holiday. I already lived 2 decades of battles wth him, I was not signing up for more. Not if there were some I could avoid anyway.
Yes, mine said it was also a “complication” that I should probably avoid.
When the terms were agreeable, we decided to give them 24 hours to sign; otherwise, we’d book a court date and end the negotiations. His attorney was talking about quitting, so it was a calculated risk. His attorney decided he’d quit if his client didn’t sign and that he’d blacklist him with every solid family law attorney in the area.
My ex signed just a few hours before the deadline and then gave me more headaches in closeout, over a year’s worth. My attorney said, “Sorry, but at least the legal bond is severed.” Yup.
My ex did the same thing…..signing just hours before the deadline…..it must be in the cheater’s handbook.
Very similar to my experience. We agreed to separate and work on marriage with a therapist. Therapist required and FW agreed to no contact with AP. Nope, just another smokescreen. She used “separation” as justification for cheating even though she agreed otherwise. People are who they show themselves to be. That is such a hard lesson when you love someone and want to see the best in them. It takes a lot of adjustment to accept this and let them go, but it is for the best.
Thank you Bruno, so good to know I’m not alone in this experience of deception and mind f…ery.
I feel this. My ex claims now that she didn’t cheat, because she had told me “needed space”. Even though we still lived together, slept in the same bed, even though I asked for clarification on what “needing space” meant (she said she didn’t know really), even though I asked her point blank if there was someone else and said “no absolutely not, this is just about me needing space to figure myself out” (she’d been through a significant challenges with her siblings, some identity related stuff, so this tracked!).
Turned out what she really needed the space for was to figure out if the person she’d been cheating with was worth leaving our 20+ year marriage for. 8 months later and she still hadn’t figured it out….at which point I thankfully figured out for myself that SHE wasn’t worth a single second more of my time…!
If someone believes a “break” or separation or whatever is going to include dating other people, that needs to be made clear up front. To not make that clear is shady AF.
… yup, this one stings deep… I went to the “I just Need Space” concert as well… and I got the T-Shirt… I think the supporting act was a new group called “What in The Actual F…?”
My experience exactly: “Turned out what she really needed the space for was to figure out if the person she’d been cheating with was worth leaving our 20+ year marriage for.”
“If someone believes a “break” or separation or whatever is going to include dating other people, that needs to be made clear up front.”
Yeah, but. And it is a big but: that rule only works with ethical people who keep their word. If someone has already broken their marriage vows, what thought will they give to a separation agreement that excludes dating? None. The same contemplative thought that went into breaking their wedding vows. None.
OP, you have way better things to do with your time than pondering whether you are being fair to Schmoopie. He might not have known? Give me a break. You all worked together and office gossip moves at a speed several times the speed of light. He knew on day 1 of separation (and likely much sooner) when the office started buzzing that Good Guy and Skank Ho had separated.
I think you need a new job to round out your new life. A new job unencumbered by Skank Ho, a man who slept with your wife, and the minions who know about it.
There are some things an adult does not have to clarify to another adult. One is that if you are separating to work on your marriage, you don’t hop on the sex carousel and ride it around with a new sex partner.
You did the honorable thing and tried to save your marriage. She behaved dishonorably, as usual. Be glad she is gone and don’t waste one more second on second-guessing the motivations and morality of cheaters.
Thanks Principled, I needed to hear this. A part of my brain was sending me those thoughts exactly… the rumor mill would have kicked in and anyone with an opportunistic mindset would have started to salivate. Fortunately for me both the EW and the FW are now no longer working there and I have endured and survived long enough to have the place to myself now.
Fantastic! Here is to the strong foundation you have built, on which to craft your better life. And one more CN warning: she’ll be back at some point wanting pity, attention, your money, your integrity, for you to validate with ongoing contact that she is not really pond scum…don’t allow it. She married up with you and you are wiser now.
“You don’t hop on the sex carousel and ride it around.” I love Chump Nation, which comes up with such great metaphors.
“To not make that clear is shady AF.”
This reminded me of the song “The Breaks” by Kurtis Blow: Told you the story of his life, but forgot the part about his wife.
Okay, so I left my job due to my manager’s workplace affair.
I watched her book work trip after work trip, and I knew most of it wasn’t necessary. I thought it was weird that she’d choose to be away from her young kids that often. (I would’ve thought the same if it were a man doing it; the kids are young.) Then I went to a conference where she made it quite clear that she and this other guy were a couple. (He was married too — the epitome of the flashy sales guy stereotype.) Both are now in messy divorces.
Sounds like a crazy reason to leave my job of many years, but this wasn’t the only unethical thing I witnessed, and I’d had enough. No one could rely on anything being handled with principles — just whim and favoritism.
ANYway, I say all that to say — the honest people at your job of course know what she did and are wary of her as a result. You will have others — like your idiot friend, maybe even some devout Christians as in my case — who say “whatever!” As long as they get to party, or get promotions, they don’t care about morals. It’s very weird, if you ask me.
As a Jesus follower myself, I can assure you that these are not “devout Christians.”
No, but they call themselves such. I’ve lived in the Bible Belt for most of my life, and I’ve seen a lot of this.
If their version of the afterlife is correct, they’re in for a big surprise after they die.
Agreed, DOAC. I enjoy your comments. I hope it is well with you.
i dont know if you want to label it “cheating” but if shes got a boyfriend while going to therapy sessions with you, thats fucked up.
I’m not a couples therapist but i feel like the bare minimum for reconcilliation would be maybe dont be actively banging other dudes. That’s not working on your marriage, thats hedging your bets.
Whose paying for all these therapy sessions anyway?
It’s cheating precisely because they were supposed to be working on the marriage. She broke that agreement.
Sleepless Chump,
You trusted your Cheater to act in good faith during your marriage, and she didn’t. You trusted your Cheater to act in good faith during your therapy/attempted reconciliation, and she didn’t. You let your guard down, allowed yourself to be vulnerable and to trust (it says a lot about you, all of it good) and yet she undertook a course of action that led to you being hurt. This is all on her, even though you were the one who was “knocked for six.”
I made a similar “mistake” (I prefer to think of it as a “learning experience”) when I trusted that Ex-Mrs LFTT would at least try to abide by our Divorce Agreement with good grace. Plot spoiler, she didn’t. This led me to shut her sh*t down very firmly indeed, and the imposition of some very hard boundaries with her that I maintain to this day (our divorce was finalised 8 years ago) as a result. She absolutely hates these boundaries, but that’s tough … they are there to protect me and our now adult kids, not to punish her … and they work!
As regards your “trusted friend” … he isn’t. He didn’t “take a way a piece of your puzzle,” he showed you that your values aren’t aligned. In your shoes I’d drop him like a red-hot sh*t-smeared house brick.
LFTT
Yes true… What’s more frustrating is that I was encouraged by counselling to this as being on a journey of learning to trust again after it had been broken! So hearing a “professional” set this tone and combining this with my desperation to just have the marriage succeed I pushed down all the distress and confusion and pain and just learned to “show up” doing the work. Simultaneously my coach was teaching me about “not being attached to outcomes” and that my “anxious attachment” was pushing my then wife away! It was years before I finally found an article explaining that anxiety is a PERFECTLY NATURAL and logical emotion to have if someone is cheating in a marriage and secretly conversing with an ex and bringing home objects that belong to the ex and hiding them under the bed.
Sleepless Chump,
I think that your use of the the phrase “my desperation to just have the marriage succeed” is very telling. Indeed, I suspect that many of us Chumps have been in a similar mindset.
I hope that you are in a better place and more balanced mindset now.
LFTT
100%
In an odd way, I took comfort from the fact my now ex was cheating while we attended couples counseling and were living apart. The comforting part is that it emphasizes the problem was always her, and there was no saving the marriage. You have to be one cold-hearted, calculating, cruel Cheater to attend therapy to heal a marriage why burning it down secretly via cheating.
I hadn’t considered this mindset, and now that I consider your words Minister I think I also feel a sense of relief. Yes true, finding yet another schmoopie while separated only further surfaced the problem in her character.
The Cheater is deficient in having a basic grasp of morality. all these cheaters are in different bodies, but they are all rotten apples to the core and act using to the same deviant playbook.
Amen
I got that, too. He said, “If we can make this marriage good, I’m all in.” Meanwhile, he was ramping up his secret sexual basement activities. What he meant was, “I want you to go all in on me, because that makes this marriage good for me.” And, in fact, he much later told me he thought the marriage was over, so his activities with the ex-student were fine.
This is how they operate, and they will say whatever advances their interests at the time they say it.
Sleepless Chump, yeah, she was cheating. It was cheating. She never committed to you in the first place, and like CL says, she lived with you while “keeping her options open.”
Grateful for your words. I feel for you also, that kind of deception is like living with a brain encircled by mirrors… It’s good to get reality stated so simply… she cheated, simple.
One thing I have found super helpful in this process is to grab onto a few very simple and direct truths to come back to. Specifically for things that you struggle with.
For example, ChumpLady is right, what others think of the situation and whether *they* would call it infidelity? Does NOT matter. What YOU think here is what matters. The thing is, “separation” can mean different things for different people. My FW had a long affair that was long distance. I found out 3 years in, and he never moved out of the marital home until 3 years later. (He was still invoolved with his AP all that time)
We called it “separation” when he moved out. We were NOT trying to work anything out at that point. But we called it separation because we were not yet divorced. So when he immediatlely started dating, I didn’t consider THAT cheating, because we were very much NOT together. He also warned me he would. (Threats, at the last minute when Schmoopie bailed, he suddenly wanted to reconcile, after his 6 year affair, he hoped that threatening me with him dating would make me want to keep him…NOPE) That said, in my state, his dating before we were divorced would have been considered infidelity legally. Some people go through a rough patch in their marriage that doesn’t involve cheating, and one moves out while they work on it. They take some space not to date others, but to give them some room to breathe while they do couple’s therapy and work on the relationship with the intention to hopefully get back together. I am sure that there are a few outliers that might be ok with outside dating there, because different strokes and all that, but MOST people in that situation are NOT going to be ok with the other person dating. MOST reasonable people will consider that cheating. Even the ones who maybe are open to outside dating are going to make that clear BEFORE they do it.
You were misled. And that is betrayal. That is cheating.
Your friend is an ass.
As far as your friend’s take on the schmoopie that worked with you? Saying that all men would do it? First off, no, being here in CN I see that NOT all men would do it. But so what if they would? Doesn’t make it ethically ok, just not uncommon.
Anyway, you seem to be a bit wrapped up in the confusion of whether or not she was cheating. As Adelante said “she never committed to you in the first place” There is your answer. You feel like a chump because you have been chumped.
For me, one of my magic statements was “*I* am not the first person he cheated on”
Early on right after I found out about the affair, he tried really hard to get me to believe that it was MY fault. I didn’t give him enough attention. Lest you think I am a cold, harsh women, please know that in the deades we were together, I lost so much of my self, and gave up so much of who I was, just trying to make him happy, that I barely recognized myself by the end. I didn’t make a single decision that didn’t take his preferences into account first, whatever he wanted, that is what we did. I saw less of my friends. I saw less of my family. Multiple family members died in the meantime, so that is time I can never get back. The man is a bottomless pit of need and I could never have given him the amount of attemtion he required. Because it wasn’t just attention. He needed to be online flirting with strangers, knowing that he had the sexual approval of others. It wasn’t exciting that his wife of 2 decades wanted him. He needed lots of women to want hi,m I think he probably did a LOT of flirting online just for that validation and then one day, he met the AP and itbecame a full fledged affair. I don’t know of any others, but I’d be pretty naive to think there weren’t any others.
Thing is..the affair was NOT my fault. And most of the time, I knew that. But occasionally he’d start with his bs and I would have doubts spring up again. As ChumpLady says, early on we are so wobbly. It is easy to get yourself turned around.
Until one day I remembered that he had cheated on a previous longterm gf. (that should have been a red flag, but as they say, I thought it was a carnival)
It’s one thing to say that he cheated on me and it was MY fault. But was it ALSO hers? That little simple fact became a mantra. Everytime he would start blameshifting, I would remind myself “this has NOTHING to do with you. He didn’t do it JUST to you. This is who HE is. “And that always broughrt me back to center. That one simple fact jsut works like an antidote to the fuckery.
So when you start thinking about whether everyone else would think her dating while separated was cheating? Remind yourself that she had ALREADY HAD AN EMOTIONAL AFFAIR. That isn’t about you, or the defintion of “separation” that is simply who SHE is.
also, read the archives about the Reconciliation Industrial Complex. It will help you sort out confusion over what therapists have said.
Thank you SortOf, your tell it so straight and real. I couldn’t help but resonate when I heard you say that you barely recognised yourself by the end. The destructive impact of this shit is huge. And I’m slowly starting to assimilate your message there about just understanding this is just ‘who she is’. Yeah the R.I.C stuff really gets me mad because it looks like a place where brokenhearted and traumatised people put their trust in professionals while the FW’s get to hide in a daul accountability framework that almost universally ends up restraumatising the victim over and over again.
“The destructive impact of this shit is huge.”
It really, really is. I’ve had break ups of serious relationships in my life that I thought were “hard”. And prior to going through this, I thought divorce was jsut another break up but with paperwork this time.
It’s not. Divorce with cheating is just a whole different level and it is SO hard. And generally it comes with other types of abuse. He was so controlling, mean and selfish. Everything was always about him. And yet he was never satisfied.
He moved out almost 2 years ago and I am a different person now. I still have plenty of work to do, but boy, a LOT has changed. I promise you, it gets better. Early on, I didn’t believe anything could ever be ok again. And there were plenty of times along the way that I felt hopeless. But it has gotten so much better. In 3 years, the youngest will be 18 and I can go fully no contact. Until then, I avoid him as much as possible. Things get better by the day. It took quite awhile for me, but I got there. You will too.
Mine said things like that and then made little effort in our marriage while stoking the “fires” on the side. I think an element for him was also keeping his family on the hook. He claimed to be all in for getting back together because he knew that’s what they wanted.
But at times, I wondered if he was goading me into divorce so he could blame me and then pursue his “interests” without interference.
‘What he meant was, “I want you to go all in on me, because that makes this marriage good for me.”’
Exactly. They love to sucker chumps into going all in while they screw around. They probably secretly laugh at the con they’ve pulled off.
Oh, I’m sure my ex thought he was entitled to it.
Dear Sleepless,
I think healing begins when we bridge the gap between what our guts knows to be true (such as the fact that infidelity is a form of abuse and involves abuse to facilitate) and what the culture programs us to think (such as the idea that infidelity, because it’s common, is normal and “not so bad”).
To me, that gap is the definition of despair and maybe why people say that one “falls into” depression. So no wonder you were beginning to feel better once that chasm between truth and perception started to close. Then along comes this shitty “friend” who tries to re-open the abyss and you fell into it again. Which is why I’m really disgusted with that so-called friend on your behalf. I mean, way to say “I poach married women and probably cheat on all my relationships” without actually saying it. I frankly wonder what his partner or the next woman he dates would think about his general “infidelity acceptance.”
Interestingly, “infidelity acceptance” is an actual clinical term which, in social research, apparently statistically corresponds to all sorts of other awful, pathological and transgressive beliefs (such as “rape myth acceptance”) and dangerous character traits (such as coercive sexual behavior).
In any case I don’t believe that people who carry toxic attitudes like that are merely “naive” but tend to have dirty hands in some way or other. Consider being careful about hanging out in the “enemy camp” while you’re in the midst of recovering from battle wounds. This guy is basically victim-blaming in a sense by accusing you of falsely playing the victim and actually blame-shifting by making you the sexually controlling bad guy as CL alluded. But, if I learned anything as a former advocate for abuse survivors, it’s that the only people who “play” victim are abusers.
I’m tempted to repeat that in all caps for emphasis because it’s the truest truth there is in regards to abuse. Otherwise, actual victims universally hate being victims and wish it wasn’t necessary to be identified as such in order to get the support resources they need to emotionally survive such as finding communities of people who’ve endured the same types of experiences.
Furthermore, actual victims are really bad at being victims while the abusive blameshifting fakers seem to pull off the performance with more panache which tends to appeal better to the peanut gallery. For instance, while actual victims are ugly-crying alone in restroom stalls, look like shit from prison camp level sleep deprivation and unsettle bystanders with their excessive agitation or quasi-catatonia, the fakers become flying monkey magnets by, say, letting one elegant tear gently roll down their cheek as they faux-stoically murmur out their tales of faux-woe.
Also in my experience, more than half of what survivors of anything have to overcome is the requisite victim blaming from social context and often so-called helping professionals. In the context of interpersonal trauma, the latter dynamic is often called the “second injury” of domestic abuse– the fact that too many bystanders seem to echo the same blaming/shaming message as the original abusers.
The “second injury” effect applies to many forms of victimization. For instance, a survivor of the Holocaust who testified at Nuremberg used a potent analogy (which became the title of a film) to describe the devastating effects of the shaming and incredulity he encountered from bystanders and even relatives after he escaped Auschwitz and tried to tell his story. Apparently the survivor had endured 80 lashes with a whip while in the camp but the 81st blow– the disbelief and contempt he received from bystanders– was the thing that genuinely destroyed him. It was even a common recurring nightmare of many camp survivors that they would finally escape to safety and find their families again but, when they tried to recount their camp experiences, no one believed them.
Not to draw extreme parallels to mass political atrocity but the point is that negative bystander reactions to any level of trauma are universally described as more devastating than the original injuries by survivors which is why social response in the immediate wake of trauma can make or break people. Getting a lousy, unsupportive reaction carries the message that there is no safe place in the world, no social asylum, that you’ll forever be alone with your trauma. It may not be true but that first impression created by bystander invalidation can sink in bone-deep when you’re fresh out of catastrophe and in the skinless stage of recovery.
As far as whether most infidelity is truly a form of abuse, a regular commenter here put it well by saying that all cheating apologias fall apart once the argument is framed in the context of consent. Cheating is figuratively– and often literally– a form of rape by deception where the cheater is extracting value and services from a relationship which the other party– if they knew the truth– would likely withhold. The main reason cheaters lie is simply to enforce one-sided monogamy.
But until sexual consent is treated with the same legal and ethical gravitas as financial consent, apologists will continue to parse in descending order like they once did (and sometimes still do) over domestic violence and child abuse (“Well, s/he didn’t use a closed fist but an open hand so it’s not abuse”…”didn’t kick but only punched”… “didn’t stab but only kicked”… “didn’t shoot but only stabbed”… “didn’t dismember and cannibalize but only shot,” etc., etc.).
Then of course there’s the unconsented risk of contracting deadly STDs from cheaters, the typical financial abuse that comes in tow (which is viewed as a form of virtual violence in DV advocacy channels because of the sometimes life-threatening effects of it) and the bully gang/harassment/reputational smear dynamic where affair partners and other flying monkeys often play proxy abusers by inciting or enabling the continuing financial, physical and emotional abuse of chumps. And let’s not forget the typical, sometimes rage-fuelded “DARVO” blameshifts that most cheaters engage in by falsely accusing chumps of unspeakable flaws and crimes.
At the very least, the deny/attack/reverse victim and offender tactic is meant to whitewash their own tainted consciences. But I believe it’s also to destroy the self esteem, agency and independence of victims as part of that one-sided monogamy enforcement. What’s more it can also be a sort of “demo” of the terrible things the cheater will tell others about the victim which is essentially a threat of social ruin. The latter clearly mesh with official definitions of coercive control (which is criminalized in the UK and Scotland).
Anyway, if that’s not considered abuse, there’s no truth in this world and I generally reject ethical nihilism and the shady creeps who spew it.
Deeply grateful to you HOAC…. so much insight and meat in your comment that will leave me pondering into the rest of the day. Thank you.
So glad you found this community. You clearly have a lot of insights to offer yourself and I hope you stick around your “brethren” on your quest for meh and mighty.
Sleepless,
Before I go any further, I just want to say that I love your narrative. I feel like you have very beautifully articulated the Chump process. Like genuinely, this is the sort of thing I want to show any newly minted Chumps. It has everything!
It sounds like your personal Fuckwit used “Separation” as her “Rolling Stop Logic”-“slow down, but keep going, never quite fully come to a stop.” Irrespective of the fact that you are no longer living together, it seems like the counseling apparatus here is intended to, you know, fix the relationship,, she elected to do the things that required the mending of the relationship.
Dishonesty? Lack of transparency? Acting in a self-serving manner in doing both of those things? There’s some adage about “ducks” and “walking” and “quacking”-you will forgive me, it’s early and I’m due for another cup of coffee.
As far as this person (they are no “friend” to you), you seem to have hit what I am starting to term Sgt. Kenneth Hall stretch of “finding out who your friends really are.” I am specifically referring to the character portrayed by Ving Rhames in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. His rally the troops speech involves something to the effect of “folding the flag, saying a lot of condolences, but really thinking ‘better them than me’.”(he comes around on that mentality due to the events of the movie, but I digress.)
I bring this up(apart from my unironic love for that movie and pretty much everything Ving Rhames is in, ahem) because I feel like we all experienced “that one friend” in telling our stories that didn’t see what the problem with the cheating was and are wondering why we are so upset. This almost always is because they haven’t been burned by it like we have. Gods know I am guilty of that.
Some people simply do not comprehend the horrors until not only it visits their house but burns the thing down. I’d like to think better of those people and they simply haven’t made the room in their heads/hearts to really think about the consequences of “somebody getting some side action.” That they are able to comprehend that it is not a victimless act and that a great deal of harm is done (and for far better reasons than “there are going to losers”, or as my personal fuckwit dismissively put it, “heartbreak is a part of life.”
And not, you know, “I have either cheated or would not be opposed to cheating and I am not down with the consequences for those actions (but like the part where I get laid and my other needs met with fewer than usual strings so let’s focus on that part, k?)” I wanted to think better of some of those people in my life. Some of them even actually asked if I meant it when I said “wow, fuck you, we’re done.”
You got this. If it were me? I’d stop going to therapy with this idiot-she’s already shown that she isn’t willing to respect you, your safety, or your boundaries. She already demonstrated clear ethical impairment. You gave her another chance-that she did not deserve, might I add,-and has now blown that as well. She has demonstrated what she thinks of you. And she will do it again. Protect yourself.
And a Mighty Monday to the rest of you!
Thank you Jeff, I’ll be sure to get myself a duck identification device on the drive home today… I may have an acute duck identification deficiency disorder – or as it’s known in clinical circles D.I.D.D.D
Hiya,
I’d tweak this a little…
“Counseling while separated isn’t a green light for cheating.“
I’d say “counseling while separated isn’t a green light to get involved in other relationships.”
The litmus test is whether all parties involved were informed and consented to the situation.
Keeping secrets, lying, and being otherwise deceived is the defining characteristic.
It’s why I have backed off on using the word “cheating”. Sticking with “deceived” keeps the water from getting muddy and shuts down word games and hair-splitting semantics. Cheaters, side pieces, and the uninitiated like to argue about the definition of cheating.
My former husband was deceiving me. There is no debate about what that means.
Since my DDay in 2017, I have learned that infidelity is just one manifestation of a larger and pervasive pattern of dishonesty on the part of people who engage in affairs.
If you look closer at their character and behavior, you’ll find dishonesty is the operating system in other areas of their lives.
More on today’s subject, I will also share that due to a total absence of wise elders in my extended family, I’ve had two very good therapists whose counsel I have retained for almost 40 years. Their advice on healthy behavior when seeking a relationship was the same, and I agree with them:
1) Do one relationship at a time. Do not get into another relationship until you have finalized and sufficiently processed the one you are in.
2) People in committed relationships are unavailable for dating. People recently out of a committed relationship are not the best choice either. People need time to process and heal and you don’t want to be somebody’s band aid. Someone who is right for you will be available when you are both ready.
3) If you are married, do not date until you are officially divorced. If you have children, do not bring anyone around them until a year after the divorce is finalized at the earliest.
4) Not many have the patience and wisdom to do this.
I did this and am doing this still. Certainly this is over the heads of cheaters and side pieces.
I can report that I am extremely grateful that I have followed these principles.
They do not guarantee you won’t pick someone who deceives you. There is no guarantee for that. But they do give you some wisdom to help you walk away if you find yourself defrauded.
😪
Wow, yes. I’m gonna take these points and paste them into a journal thing I’m doing to keep me on track! Thank you
Re #2, as I often say to myself, “Nobody wants to be the rebound relationship partner.” I think I was once, and it didn’t work out well for me.
To summarize, after 3 years, I wanted to marry, and he didn’t. He did indeed remarry about 1 1/2 years after I dumped him. I was no contact with him, but mutual friends told me. AFAIK, he’s still married.
Yes, such wisdom. I intuitively got this, but my ex did not (of course).
Last I knew my ex was in a LTR at long last. Sometimes I wonder if she saw any red flags and ignored them. If I was dating someone who was completely estranged from their adult kids and who told me all kinds of “crazy ex” and “crooked attorney” stories, I probably would move on. But not everyone does…
After i asked my now( X)H cheater to move out to a hotel so i could think..he texted me and he said…I COULD HAVE A WOMAN COME TO MY HOTEL ROOM every single night, but I choose to stay faithful to you!!! This is after 20+ years of a porn habit, multiple masage people and coworkers. I filed 1 week later but wrote this quote down to Remember forever.
I guess he thought that line was going to melt your heart. What a moron.
He was so entitled and arrogant that he presumed I would keep him and keep forgiving him. No matter what.
Another clincher I wrote down was he told Switzerland friends he could hit up ANY woman with a steak or lobster dinner. A line of woman would sell their souls to be with with him if he fed them. I got really angry and that helped me break the chains.
“Clinchers” would be a great Friday topic. I’m sure we all have one.
Your friend is full of it. It doesn’t matter if you were separated as long as you commit to working on the marriage in order to get back together, which you both had. Therefore, not only is it cheating, but particularly egregious because she had vowed to do what it took to get your marriage back and suckered you into therapy and false hope, all for nothing. She clearly did not intend to do anything to repair the marriage.
The bottom line is you were betrayed.
Let’s look at your “friend’s” words;
“I would do it, you would do it, any man would sleep with a married work colleague”
IOW, *he* would do it because he’s trash. One of the things cheaters and their enablers do is insist that everyone else is equally capable of it. It’s just the way they rationalize their own lack of integrity. I’ve had people insist to me, getting very worked up about it, that I am capable of it because every single person on the planet is. When you hear that sort of statement you know you’re dealing with an a**hole.
The one thing your friend was right about is that she may have lied to the AP, which she wouldn’t have needed to do if she thought it was permissible to fuck around because you were separated at the time.
Now would she have kept the affair secret from you if she felt that way.
When you’re separated and not trying to get back together it’s a different matter. Your friend sounds like he’s too dumb to understand the distinction.
I found his comment and insistence so triggering and destabilizing. I was frustrated to the core. Although he didn’t use the words exactly what I heard was “come on man, he is just a bloke, some as you, if a woman at work came up to you and said she was separated and started flirting you would totally go for it”… and in that moment I felt like my mate was trying to equate my potential behavior in his hypothetical to the actual behavior of the FW. Maybe that is why I found it so utterly repugnant and shocking.
Sure says something pretty bad about the friend, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t sleep with a married work colleague if I knew he was married. I’ve worked with quite a few attractive married men, but I always reminded myself that “He’s married and unavailable. So keep your distance.”
Where I live, in New Zealand, it takes 2 years post official separation to get a divorce. Reasons why you’re divorcing are irrelevant.
I’m my eyes if you are separated but are working on the marriage, then yes it’s cheating if they see someone else. If it is agreed that there is no hope for reconciliation, then we separate and move on while waiting for the clock to click over 2 years.
My ex and I agreed to work on our marriage, declared love and we both said we wouldn’t jeopardise our relationship by seeing other people. 3 days after those declarations were made he was back communicating with his girlfriend.
I have 30 more days to go until I can file for divorce. I think I’ll be happily single for the rest of my life. I got a dog who gives me a the love I think I need (and we have 4 kids). After close to 2 years I’m at the meh point, well and truly.
Your wife cheated on you, more than once. During your marriage and during separation. I wish you well with your healing journey.
Tracey’s book was instrumental in me getting to meh.
Jeesus! only 3 days later???? I feel for you Lisa, that must have hit like a freight train.
Is this relationship acceptable to you. Best answer ever at every level of a conversation about relationships.
Amen
Sleepless, it could be that your colleague is also a cheater, or flying monkey for the Other Man, and wants to shut down your criticism because it reflects poorly on him/them and might lead to judgement from other colleagues.
My ex worked for a tech company, and at his branch, it was common for colleagues to cheat with each other. I was shocked that they saw cheating as the norm and monogamy as passe, even when they were having elaborate second and third marriages.
Dang, so so scary to think that… and yet you may be right. I may be seeking refuge in enemy camp.
Yes, I worked in places like that. Sometimes the affairs were openly consummated on business trips and even at work.
I remember hearing rumors about a couple in the office (both married). I left work late one time because of a deadline. When I walked by one of their offices, there were all kinds of “noises” that made me literally run the rest of the way down the hall and out to the lobby. Just ick! It was like 7pm or so…
Back in the 90s, after I got laid off from a job, I found out that our married director had been having an affair with another married director. According to my source, they’d been overheard arguing in our director’s office. Also, she’d been going on monthly “business” trips that coincided with his “business” trips to the same location. And according to the grapevine, she’d been going to therapy to decide whether or not to get a divorce.
Anyway, she ended up getting fired. I don’t know why, but I’ve wondered if it was because of those “business” trips on the company dime. Was any business (besides monkey business) conducted? Falsifying expense reports is generally an offense punished by termination.
I don’t know if cheating was endemic at the company, but there was another incident that makes me wonder. I was at the grocery store one day picking up something after work, and I saw a different married director in line a couple of lanes over who was engaging in PDA with a woman I knew wasn’t his wife. (I’d met her.) This guy was over 6 feet tall and had flaming red hair, so he was quite visible. I was like “Oh sh*t, what if he sees me? How do I handle that?” As the kids say now, awkward!!!
Fortunately, I’m medium sized and not at all conspicuous, so I turned away and did my best to think invisible thoughts. I think it worked, and he didn’t notice me.
Now, I’d get in touch with his wife and let her know. I’ve wondered what happened with that marriage. Did she find out? Did she divorce him? They had 3 small children, adorable little girls. Guess that didn’t keep him from cheating.
My now husband got a divorce in Virginia (which has a notoriously long timeline for divorces) so almost everyone starts dating before the divorces are final but my sweet husband was so frightened by the “dont date” warning that he didnt for 6 years. 6 years after that he started dating me. His ex started dating during the separation but from the Cheater hell I came from, I kinda give her points for waiting until she was out of the house before she started dating.
Betrayal Blindness…I was guilty of a few forms of this mind game. Please know that there were red flags on and off for 18 years but no smoking gun. The day I found he smoking gun, I looked him in the face and said “was it physical?” and he said “yes” whereupon I made a terrible (pain indicating) face and he said “no, no, it wasn’t !” which we all knows means that it WAS physical but he gaslit me horribly lying over and over after that until I ignored that he ever admitted it was physical. The second episode is when he moved 3000 miles await start a new job in the same city as OW but swore to me they had broken up. I feel like the most pitiful, pathetic, reality denying chump of the century for that one. Reality didnt smack me in the face until I found a souvenir from that city with their names on it.
To me, a separation should mirror a marriage in that it needs rules/boundaries and whatever the couple agree to should be honored. I had a coworker whose husband was too much of a coward to tell her any truth – he approached her with a request for a “brief trial separation” but he had quite paying the house or car payments months earlier. He went right into OWs bed and the wife lost everything. I actually got more truth from my Cheater than she did and I got very little…that was the most weasel move that used the “separation ruse” that I ever saw.
As usual, Chump Lady is right. And I agree with CL’s comments on dating during separation. If you’ve filed for divorce and are living separately, OK. Especially in locations where you have to live apart for a long time before the divorce can be final. However, I also agree with her that most people in that situation probably aren’t ready to date.
However, your ex’s behavior was awful. You were attending couples therapy to try to work things out, and she was cheating!!! It sure wouldn’t be acceptable to me.
Don’t worry about other people’s opinions. It wasn’t acceptable to you, and you acted accordingly. Trust that she sucks.
“Discovering those words also led to a deep and cathartic certainty and of finding a massive piece of the puzzle of my reality and also the language by which to describe it. “
I’m so thankful I found text and email evidence that showed me the level of my FW ex’s betrayal, gaslighting and cruelty. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known that my ex had been cheating for (at least) 7 years with (at least) two much younger OWs. He confessed to a brief “inconsequential” (his word) fling while we were taking “time and space” (also his words, and unilateral decision). He professed his undying love and begged me to give him another chance and so I agreed to counseling, and — when the counselor and I still believed his story that this one fling was brief and over — he emailed the counselor secretly to say he thought it was unhealthy for me to think of what he’d done as cheating! Then was furious when she disclosed his email in a session. When he knew he’d been cheating for years with multiple women, and still was! He held his cards close. He was letting me split the cost of these sessions that I explicitly agreed to only because he swore there was no one else. He implied I was overreacting about this fling and that our “separation” had been mutual and reasonable. I would never had known the crazy truth if I hadn’t found the evidence. So much made sense after that, about my own feelings and about what had been going on, and I was able to begin to TRUST THAT HE SUCKED and that liars lie. Cheating is absolutely abuse.
Based on my experiences, I wouldn’t be surprised if your ex hadn’t been cheating on you all along. And I strongly suspect she was cheating before she proposed this separation. You may get never get the kind of evidence that shows the full timeline and magnitude of deceit to all parties that I discovered, but I think just knowing it’s a real possibility might help more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. That, and learning about personality disorders and the cycle of abuse, let me finally make enough sense of my shattered reality to stop ruminating all the time and start moving towards meh. Congrats on leaving a cheater and finding CL. No contact and letting go of flying monkeys and Switzerland were the next big steps for me.
the FW’s seem to have all gone to the same FW university… and trained in the dark arts of FWitery from the same text book. Please for “Time & Space”, younger schmoopies, professing undying love while their genitals went wayward… yeah i suspect you are right… my intuition tells me that there was lots i didn’t uncover in the infidelity ice berg of my ex wifes double life. And yes, Cheating IS abuse… amen
Thank you CL and fellow Chumps… this forum is a powerhouse. In the darkest days I would lie in bed, mind filled with terrible images, and read the articles and comments on ChumpLady just to find relief enough to go to sleep.
Each article and each comment contained bittersweet medicine that helped remind me that my pain is not unique, I am not alone and that (one day) I would be ok. It is terrifying to learn in my 40’s that there are pathologically evil people out there.
My HR reps told me there was nothing they could do even though I had explained that I was paying thousands of my own dollars in trauma counselling and suffering debilitating agoraphobia that prevented me from coming into work for more than a year by that point. The mere sight or mention of them (yes they openly displayed their relationship in the office and around campus) would trip a powerful circuit in my mind that left me in a catatonic like state. The searing heat of the inescapable public rejection and humiliation displayed to an audience of hundreds would make my brain turn off so completely that I even forgot my own name and where I lived on more than one occasion.
HR promised they would instruct FW to not contact me under any circumstances but guess what he did a few months later… he emailed me. An utterly pointless work-related email where he referred to me to some new starters as someone that he “knows” could help with their issue… an email he sent, I can only now assume, to proudly and unashamedly display his mental health care accreditation at the bottom of the signature.
Two months ago, my very supportive manager called me to say he’d heard on the grapevine that FW was leaving, I burst into uncontrollable weeping just nanoseconds after I heard the words leave his mouth. Weeks after the FW left, I had a chance encounter with him on a tram station outside the office. Zero shame on his face or body, chest puffed out in defiance, he decided that out of 18 different ticketing stations he had to choose on the platform he would walk up to mine and choose to stand just inches from me… maniacally staring at me while I desperately ignored him and worked to not react in any way in my face or body. It wasn’t till I got into the office that the panic attack started… some good-hearted work colleagues took me for tea and over the course of a couple hours managed to get me out of my catatonic state.
And that’s what this forum is really. A digital cup of tea where good people who have felt the utter destruction of infidelity plague their minds and souls and hearts while wrestling with family and friends and colleagues who – quite simply – just don’t get it. But some do… and I am deeply, deeply, deeply grateful to CL for getting us all together here… together in our pain and our humour and our healing.
I was similarly situated where you are now one year ago. My divorce became final on March 31, 2025, which I did the entire legal work (I am a lawyer but not in family law) super fast to get the Ex out of my life after 10.3 years of a fake marriage, it turned out. Yes, there is evil in our unsuspecting midst. He was pathologically, lying and cheating behind my back from the day he met me. He simply used me; he never loved me at all, I learned from evidence I found on his laptop. Know that after you get through this darkness of your Ex’s making, you will come out on the other side joyful, internally stronger, and wiser. Especially if you work with a trauma focused clinical psychologist, take good care of you with daily exercise and good nutrition, and lean on your faith. I promise you, SleeplessChump, I am now in a position to say that being one year out from D-day, you will reach the other side of darkness to joy. Also, you might seriously consider finding another place to work. No contact at all is the most effective way to heal, in my experience. Take good care.
Recently, FW sent me a screencap of something for our daughter, and one of the tabs open on his computer was for an AI chatbot girlfriend. OF COURSE he’s cheating on the child mistress with an AI “girlfriend”. He cheated on me with almost exclusively paid APs (sugar baby, OFs, professionals, etc.). Unsurprisingly, he’s gone with the even lazier option while he’s living with the child mistress. It just makes me laugh.
I wonder if she still thinks she “won”. Hahahaha
The writer will be even angrier when he finds out her affair started BEFORE the separation. Likely the separation was due to the affair. Didn’t want hubby in the way of workplace schmoopie.
yeah, i have had several good female friends in my life says this to me while i told them the details of what happened. Things that flew past my head instantly pinged their intuition and they would say “there was something she didn’t want you to see”
PrincipledLife already said it… cheaters are not ethical people. If I could wind back the clock to d-day, I would binge on chumplady until my head stopped spinning. An ethical person cannot even begin to understand the level of self-absorption a cheater has and how they will throw us under the bus every time. Nothing is sacred. I still don’t get it but 2 years out I finally, only expect lies and deception and I’m starting to see right through my wasband. He truly is a thin shell of a man. So when he tries to manipulate me and our awesome kids I am so much smarter. I am NC but due to kids his stupid mug pops up now and again.
His dick was slipping into cracks all over town when we were separated but thankfully, and painfully I’ll add, I shut down emotionally and so there was no chance for him to do pretend therapy. He’s a 3rd generation cheater. I finally put the pieces together after he left. It helped that I found a letter in his mom’s stuff from his grandpa, apologizing for misplacing his member. It’s generational unfortunately. I’m glad to break the ties to that congenital defect.
Dear sleepless, get healthy for yourself at all costs and say you are grateful out loud until you mean it, that she did you the favor of wrecking everything. She did not deserve you! You trusted her and she deceived you and that is on her. Cheaters don’t go to jail but there is a special hell prepared for them. The hell we experience is undoubtedly the worst pain but it will end. Theirs will be eternal. Burn baby burn.
Oh, and schmoopie IS evil and deserves to be labeled such. He does not get a pass. And he will get the same treatment you did and if they are still working with you, you will witness his demise.
This is such a complicated question. “Separated” does not have the same near-universal parameters as monogamous marriage. Some people separate but continue to actively work on a troubled marriage, and for other people, separation is divorce without the full legal status.
Because of that, people undergoing separation should discuss and / or clearly communicate whether they will be seeing other people during the separation. If it was never discussed, and one person started seeing other people without letting the other person know, then it’s difficult to say whether it was cheating or whether the pair entered some Ross-Rachel “we were on a break!” no-man’s land of sincere misunderstanding. It’s a case-by-case thing.
That said, if one person communicates that the marriage is over for them and they WILL be seeing other people during the divorce proceedings, then it isn’t cheating, even if the other person doesn’t like it or doesn’t want them to see other people. Cheating is lies and deception, not breaking up with someone and then seeing other people.
In my case, XH agreed with me that we would not see other people while separated; he was actually still seeing the OW when he made that agreement and was lying about going no-contact with her. So I absolutely regard it as cheating. But he would probably minimize his sin to “dating while separated.”
In Sleepless Chump’s case, the wife had already had one affair (I’m in the “emotional affairs count” camp) and had signaled she was still committed to making the marriage work by doing things like attending marriage counseling, and she only began seeing the co-worker in secret, so she knew it was a violation of the marriage. I’d absolutely count it as an affair.
But whether it counts as an affair or not, it’s screwed up behavior and it’s time to get away from her.