Most Creative Concealment Excuses
When I was working through the Cheater Freak Xmas submissions (winner: a literal bag of dicks), there was a whole subthread of outlandish explanations given for hickeys. He was hit in the neck with a buoy, she met with an unfortunate accident with bloodthirsty leeches, etc.
Behold your Friday Challenge.
Tell CN the craziest excuse you got for anything remotely suspicious on their person.
It’s okay if you thought it sounded vaguely plausible. (I suppose there are rogue buoys that fling themselves at unsuspecting swimmers…) But now we can laugh. Together. At them.
TGIF!
She said her bruises on her thighs were due to her and the AP messing around with a horse whip that just happened to be lying around… Not that they were doing anything they shouldn’t lmfao
Yeah, mine FW got bruised thighs and buttocks too. That was before the first Dday. She told me she had no idea how she’s got that and I believed her because she do have a medical history of vascular fragility. I will never know for sure, but recalling now with hindsight her body language and facial expression while we were talking about that I bet she was lying. I just got able to spot some of her lies as of late, and it took 3 Ddays within a couple of months. Very useful skill. For 20 years I used to think of her as someone incapable of lying. I wonder how many hints I missed… ????♂️
Really? You saw her doctor’s records verifying her “vascular fragility” lol! Or you were at the doctor appointment with her? Or, let me guess…she *told* you that she had “vascular fragility”?! Otherwise known as bruises easily in places people don’t usually get bruises…when horseplaying with her AP.
Dear threetimesachump,
she has visible varicose veins spreading from the back of her legs to the top of her feet ever since she was a teenager, with many blueish tiny spider veins. Sometimes some of them bleeded and formed bruises out of the blue. Her legs and feet swell painfully after a couple hours standing. She also has a large hemangioma on the side of her bum. And yes I heard her obgyn say that she had some varicose veins at her uterus as well. She has gone through two surgeries to remove some of the malfunctioning veins, but they keep coming back. She also has somewhat frequent spontaneous nose bleedings (our oldest son has them too – and a hemangioma). And yes, she got bruises very easily. Our youngest son is autistic and has gone through an aggressive period years ago. He was just a toddler but his tantrums were enough to bruise her arms. After 20 years living side by side with someone (ever since we were teenagers in our case) you get to know something about this person’s health even if you are not a doctor (as I am not). Of course you can be deceived and blindsided by this very person you love and care about, as all of us painfully know. But *at the time* I didn’t see reason enough to doubt the mother of my two kids. I don’t think I deserve to be mocked for this. I think it was uncalled for. Maybe the issue here is the term that I wrote above? Yes, the portuguese equivalent of “vascular fragility” were the words she used to describe her condition, I just repeated them above automatically, but again: I am no doctor, I am just a chump.
Yeah, I have that issue to; not in the girl parts; but on the legs and really most of my body. I will come up with bruises and not even remember how I got them.
My grandmother had it too. By the time she was in her 70s she was covered with them. Luckily for me, it has not gotten that bad; but medical help is available. Also, my mother had a really hard life for a woman; and that makes a difference too.
I really wish folks would not come on here and argue with a Chumps experience. Lets face it, we wouldn’t be here if we had not suffered some real trauma.
Chastising a chump for believing their spouse (even without evidence) Not Cool.
It’s a real thing
I also have it, but as a chump.
My h had bruises on his back- when I asked him wTF is that- he got angry at me saying that I’m looking for a reason to start a fight and that he probably scratched himself.
When I asked him to demonstrate
“ scratching “ he was unable to reach the spot( shocker)
I didn’t believe him- I was yelled at, followed by a silent treatment- I was the villain after all
vascular fragility….
CL really must make sort of glossary of Concealment Excuses
Bruises: xxxxx
Crabs: xxxxx
Gential warts: xxxxx
Hickeys: xxxxx
STD tests on insurance bill: xxxxx
Funny bad breaths: xxxx
Hh
My ex FW left one night out of the blue to go get groceries at like 8pm. We argued a bit because I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was so desperately needing at that time of night. Anyway he was gone for quite a long time so I rang him-no answer. I texted and he said he was going to be late because the shops close by didn’t have what he needed and he had to go further into town. I was getting worried as the night ticked on. Then he all of a sudden burst through the front door and literally flopped on the floor saying he’d just had a horrible experience. He said there was a drunk woman stumbling around our street (we live in a boring suburb), and he stopped to see if she was okay. Well, apparently she slid into the front seat of the car and started kissing him. He was trying to push her off him, but she was just so drunk it all got very weird for him. He had to push her out of the car! He said if the neighbours saw what was happening they’d get the wrong impression so he wanted me to know straightaway what this woman had done. He was so ashen and shaken. I felt so bad for him! How dare that woman do that! I made him a cup of tea and then he fell asleep in my arms because he was just so traumatised.
-Insert the world’s biggest eye roll here-
That was about 2 years before DDay. I nearly forgot about that incident, but that was only one of many BS stories that never quite made sense but after DDay they all added up to him and his shitty cheating. A lot of his weird stories involved him being some kind of victim.
Where were the “8 PM Necessary Groceries”, though?
After all, the drunken woman “horrible experience” was on your street, so that would have been after his lengthy shopping trip.
When we smell their BS and call them out beforehand, and they have the gall to follow through then come back home and continue the lie? Their indignation is universal. It’s so damaging.
Apparently there was only one massage therapist in the whole city of millions who could actually help his back pain— 3 hour appointments every week. But hey, he had back problems.
Good grief.
WOW, you already knew his story was bullshit when he left, told him so, and he STILL went ahead and pulled it off.
Oscar indeed.
Yeah, and I get the award for being a serious
Chump! ???? His stories were always so convoluted and weird that they somehow seemed plausible. Straight outta the manipulator handbook.
And the Oscar goes to….
Hahaha!
He came home very late from work one night wearing his suit jacket and pants with no shirt.
He said he had gotten nauseous at work and vomited all over his shirt and he threw it away in the office bathroom. I asked him how he vomited only on his shirt and not his pants or jacket? He was so angry that I was questioning him when he was so, so sick!
I was just flummoxed about how that could physically happen and, if he were so sick, how he drove all the way back home.
Still never knew what they were doing that he ruined his shirt…I wonder if he is still the world’s neatest vomiter?
????
Oh! I had this too only it was the suit trousers! He came home wearing some borrowed shorts and said his suit pants got torn beyond repair.
Vomiting is plausible but torn pants beyond repair???
I might have posted this before. He lost his good uniform jacket. He stressed and stressed, railed at me for losing it etc. A couple weeks later he came home with it, I said where did you find it. He said he had put it behind one of the file cabinets in the unit room, and it had fallen behind it.
But, it became obvious down the line, whore had it at her house, or one of her lazy loads of sons had taken it. Anyway, he lied through his teeth. That episode is what tells me he thought he had all his shit and lies together. It didn’t occur to him right off that he had lost it himself, or left it at whores trailer, it had to be me.
Speaking of jackets.., One morning I was getting ready to take our son to school, cheater asked if while I was out would I’d take his work jacket the cleaners.
Cheater had recently returned from a work trip to Reno. As I was emptying the inside pockets I found a receipt for an adult movie rental from the Reno Hilton.. I showed it to him, he of course denied it was his, so I called the Hilton to confirm the rental. Cheater became enraged, blaming me for snooping and invading his privacy.
I remember being speechless watching him rant and rage over me invading his privacy.
At the time it didn’t occur to me that he wasn’t alone watching the movie. Knowing what I know now, cheater being in Reno and his over reaction he likely wasn’t;t alone.
There has to be some common deal going on in these fws brains. All situations are different of course; but the cheaters seem to all do the same things when caught.
Rage against the betrayed spouse because they are fucking strange; just doesn’t make sense to me, but yet it is what they do pretty much across the board.
Susie, it really is strange, sometimes I’ll read stories on CN and the stories are so similar I have to check to see if it was me who wrote it.
I’m not sure if this is a concealment but knowing what I know now it could be.
Early in our marriage Cheater had regular work trips to Hawaii (Oahu). His flight landed early in the morning as the sun came up. He’d go to his hotel room change into running clothes and go for a run.
As he was jogging from the hotel a prostitute yelled out to him, and then somehow got him to stop. Cheater was wearing a t-shirt with the name of his college on the front. The prostitute stopped to tell him she had a friend that went to the same college. The college is in New York, I don’t think most people would recognize the name unless you lived on the east coast.
Cheater also wanted me to know that if anyone he worked with said anything to me, that I would know what actually happened.
I remember when he told me the story it made me stop and think for a moment. My guess is a prostitute at that time of the morning is probably looking for last minute business before sunrise. Small talk about a college t-shirt isn’t going to pay the bills.
It could have been completely innocent and she could have recognized the college name and couldn’t wait to share that she has a friend that went to the same college..
Oh I am sure it was concealment in both our cases. These fw get up to speed on lying and covering up real fast; some have done it from the beginning of the marriage. I am pretty sure mine did, though he only copped to ten years of adultery. Out of a 21 year marriage.
The first time I had a tingle was when he came in all excited and had to call one of the other captains for some reason. Any way as he was dialing the phone (ma bell) he said oh if you get any calls telling you I am fooling around, it is just someone trying to make trouble.
But I spackled because after all, we were involved in politics and some folks were mad they lost etc. I think of all the chump spackles that one is the one I regret the most. I should have had bells ringing in my head the size of the liberty bell.
The only excuse I can offer for myself is I likely knew by then something was off and I was going into the fetal position of fear.
world’s neatest vomiter……. aarffsttttttt
It’s with laughs like these that I almost am thankful for having been cheated on
This phrase is priceless: “world’s neatest vomiter”. ????
Sadly, this wouldn’t have fazed me with my ex, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one. He often went out with coworkers (ha) for drinks, got sloppy drunk, and then brought home vomit covered clothes to wash…
But he did have a habit of changing his clothes multiple times a day, which seemed like a bizarre quirk at the time. Now I realize it was impression management in the multiple lives he was living.
I don’t miss it one bit.
Oh Rebecca, so sorry I laughed out loud at your story. My ex-asshat was always neat & tidy so I know I would have believed him if that was his story. It’s only funny as we are on the other side of fuckwittery.
AP either ripped it off or went home with it as a souvenir ????
I’m thinking too much of her bright red lipstick ???? on it (knew her for years and that was her trademark).
I never owned lipstick!
Yuck – ripping it off – ugh
The OW in my situation was also famous for her bright red lipstick.
Found on his clothes. And she used it to write a message, on his white car, that she had stopped by.
..yeesh..
Not exactly anything ON him… I just trusted him so much. Never in a million years did I think this quiet introverted man would ever cheat on me.
So when he started working for a company that dealt with many international customers, I didn’t question that he suddenly had to sometimes “do later international conference calls” at his coworker’s house. She was just a few miles away and he started going at 8 or 9pm and wouldn’t be back until midnight.
Or that he would have a “work dinner” but “only coworker showed up.” Or he was suddenly going on business trips.
The good news is that it all happened between April and June (just 3 months) in 2015 and I was abruptly shaken awake. A friend called me because she thought her husband was cheating on her. While she was telling me and crying, everything rushed to my head like puzzle pieces:
– all those “work calls” rushed to my head.
– And meeting the coworker and how odd she treated me.
– And how FW was now clinging to his phone and laughing randomly at texts that he said “were from the office.”
And I finally was snapped out of it and confronted the ass.
These FWs take advantage of our love and trust. The gaslighting is horrific. They can all fuck off. Happy Friday
Ugh, the late night “work calls”, the clinging to her phone and the chuckling at texts “from work”… oh, and the winking-blowing-kiss/heart emoji that I occasionally glanced at her sending to male coworkers that I begged her to stop using, to no avail (I rationalized that as she being too naïve to even realize the sexual undertones of that emoji).
You were way smarter than me, MichelleShocked, kudos!, I was so stupid! This kind of shit and many more telltale signs were going on for years and I never, ever suspected of anything wrong. I regarded her as nothing short of a saint. I wish someone dropped me a hint.
My XW planned “conferences” and “workshops” in other states miles away and girls nights out and concerts with a female friend that turned out to be her confident and accomplice. Funny thing my XW casually confided me that this friend was suffering from suspecting her husband was cheating and FW was providing her emotional support. I never objected to any of those plans (in fact, I encouraged them), but somehow most of them ended up rain-checked. Maybe my XW was summoning up courage to act on her desire to cheat on me and just balked at the eleventh hour? Or were the plans legit? I will never know. Maybe still having doubts about these matters is how much stupid I am.
What I now know for sure is that one night, the affair in full throttle, my XW was sipping wine while listening to cheating-apologetic songs and simultaneously chuckling from texts “from work” (from the AP) and giving me the occasional smirk. Then she grabbed my hand, got me to stand up and proceeded to dance with me cheek-to-cheek (she was usually averse to physical contact). I managed to go along for a few seconds but as my guts signalled to me that something was very off I just freed myself and stormed out of the room (it was before the first Dday; she had been really nasty to me in front of her family all day, even mocking my job). That was a weird reaction of mine that bewildered myself. It turns out that sometimes our guts are more intelligent than our brains.
Sorry for rambling, feeling a little wobbly today.
I wasn’t super wise or anything like that. If my friend hadn’t called me crying about her husband, I don’t think it all would have connected quite so quickly for me. There were other signs too… like being invited to a “BBQ” at coworker APs house and having her shriek “I didn’t know YOU were coming!” And FW going from mostly a calm existence with me to starting fights with me nonstop,
The phone call from my friend though shook me awake. But my brain still didn’t want to believe it. After I suffered I confronted him and I couldn’t believe was actually right. I suffered terrible trauma. He walked out on me within the hour and that was it. He moved right in with coworker and her 2 boys. And suddenly my innocent 9 year old son and I were abandoned. FW never returned and I served him 2 weeks later.
It’s still surreal looking back on it.
Yeah, that experience of betrayal and abandonment by our life partner and the other parent of our children never ceases to look surreal, I guess.
I am so sorry you and your boy have gone through this. But I am sure your son is better now, because he’s got a great mom modelling strength and dignity for him.
You served your FW immediately, that was so mighty of you!
I wish you and your son healing, strength and peace, and wish your XH and his AP the raging fires of hell.
And I love you for it
Have a great weekend and thanks for your perspective. You are mighty.
Good for you MichelleShocked!
Impressed that you could put it together so quickly. Sadly, I fell for the co-worker late nights, business trips, conferences, weekend work calls/texts/meetings.
Wish I had known you back then.
I had a friend too that was immediately onto her spouse’s cheating. I admire her astute bullshit skills lol
Very early in our marriage, Cheater went out one evening with his buddy. the buddy’s wife called me all concerned that it was so late, the guys must be up to no-good.
I reassured her and stresslessly put my head on my pillow and went to sleep feeling sorry for her that she didn’t trust her husband like I trusted mine.
Now I realize that some shitty Godonlyknows was likely underway. He had me snookered, hook, line and sinker
He had scratches on his back. I was stroking his back & I was so concerned that I immediately sat up & turned the light on! He gave me some story about tangling with tree branches. Mmm…kay.
I blame my parents for making me so gullible????
Mine told me the scratches were from a piece of tile in the bathroom that he uses as a back scratcher. What an idiot.
A piece of tile in the bathroom?
Is it loose? Attached? On the floor? Chipped?
OMG the scratches! I completely forgot about those. Douchecanoe told me his back was itchy all day at work because the launderer starched his shirts too much. Of course chumpy me didn’t find it odd that after years at the same cleaners the starch was suddenly a problem. I’ve always had sensitive skin and am very careful with how I clean my clothes. What a perfect lie!
Oh I remember the scratches and marks. I’m he always said he would get scratched by branches while in the woods (he supposedly enjoyed hunting). I remember a large flank bruise once and he said he had fallen and landed on the boat trailer. The shape was not anywhere near what that would have looked like. I am not sure wth he was doing to get a large bad bruise on his flank area. He also came home from a “work trip” with a back injury. He ended up in physical therapy for months after that. I have no clue what he was up to but that is not normal.
Men reportedly often fracture their dicks during affairs. I’m assuming this has something to do with a combo of booze, sildenafil and frantically pretending to be 25.
Ex broke his dick and blamed me. But he’d kept it under wraps literally and figuratively for awhile by only having sex in the dark. So when I finally found out, he told me an elaborate tale of exactly how my vigorous sexual appetite had injured him and how much pain he had felt but was afraid to tell me all this time. When he finished his tale I calmly asked him what day it happened. When he sputtered I asked if it was it a weekday after work or a weekend. I had my phone out looking at our shared calendar that had a good deal of travel apart. He said he couldn’t remember. Sure, graphic detail of how it was my fault but couldn’t remember anything about the day it happened.
“Remembrance of the Day Swan Broke His Dick” by Marcel Proust. I think I read that in college.
Mine got himself a badly bent carrot after AP. She can have that too.
???????????? he deserved that!
I hope CL will make a cartoon of that, since it’s apparently common.
Hear that, CL? We need a cartoon of the FW rendition of so-called “peyronie’s disease” which seems to be endemic since the advent of streaming porn.
To be fair, is there a female telltale sign of excessive wankery and extracurricular schtupping? I guess it verges on misogyny to get into the stretched-out coochie territory since so many cheaters use this as an excuse to cheat on postpartum chumps. It’s a muscle, it tends to bounce back so not exactly a fair or tailored jab. But maybe telltale cheater/shmoopie-scaping?
I had exactly this too…scratched his back but his shirt was fine
https://images.app.goo.gl/2qpC1fzXoX1Gg43b9
Same here, four distinct, scabby claw marks on the back of his right shoulder. He got them from trimming the hedges. Through a ski parka. In winter.
Well come to think of it, no, not through parka since he gets hot working outdoors even in winter. Through a sweater.
Never mind deciduous hedges don’t grow in winter.
There is one value to the otherwise monumental waste of time of wreckonciliation: though it’s hardly funny at the time, the “full disclosure” process provides some comedy fodder later and also clears up a few WTFs. The claw mark thing happened during a period when the AP was throwing weepy-pouty-withdrawal-of-sex campaigns and amping up the pressure on FW to dump his family, including flushing her birth control pills (which she told a big-mouthed coworker, not FW). FW probably didn’t even feel her carving a little divorce-expediting message on his back because he was drunk 12 hours a day at that point. The AP had to do all the driving because FW’s blood was 40% bourbon.
Those were serious scratches. I imagine there’s a side piece step-by-step guide somewhere on the web quoting the Kamasutra about “marking” the married quarry. A Sharpied “Property of Shmoopie” would have been a modern twist.
trimming hedges, huh?
Actually Shmoop’s “hedges” were trimmed professionally. The fillowing is funny/not funny (but funny again because I’m still in one piece): Because our marital assets covered Shmoop’s sizeable booze bills and other lifestyle amenities that she couldn’t pay for out of her own salary, it apparently afforded her fast fashion retail sprees and full butt waxing, the latter at $80 a pop every two to three weeks.
The things we find out in full disclosure, yikes. The reason I asked FW for that info is that, aside from my PI snapping pix of Shmoops running (like literally running. Where’s the fire, ?????) into a bikini waxing salon while on a tail (the PI and I couldn’t stop laughing at that one), it seems full butthole waxers are prone to contracting MRSA, which the CDC has designated sexually transmissible.
It’s happened that people have had to have parts of their genitals removed due to MRSA due to waxing or contact with someone who contracted it sexually. Just as scary is that some are silent carriers.
There’s just no excuse for my spELliNg.
I’m not judging your SPELLING, but your story is illuminating. And hilarious!
It definitely gets funnier with the passage of time. If only there was a gallows humor pill newly minted chumps could take to ease those first six months post discovery.
To quote a comedian whose name I forget, that first few months is like a thousand years of German humor.
That can actually kill the plants of it’s done in the dead of winter, depending on the temperatures where you are. When they are dormant they should be left alone.
What an idiot.
Gotta love how the schmoops are weepy and pouty and manipulative, but somehow better than a level headed spouse. I guess all that “proves she loves me” in their demented minds.
Of all the indignities of infidelity, that’s up there. The “weepy and pouty and manipulative” OW who turns into a stalker and threatens to kill herself when a fuckwit who she’s known for a few months “tries to” end it deserves comfort and understanding? Her “hurt” matters and flatters – and is even seen as appealing and passionate? Yet the long term partner who’s taken everything like a chump for years, and who is literally FAMILY, elicits ridicule, repulsion and rage?
.
Yes, I heard several times how “heart-rending” Shmoopie’s tears and howls were when she was unceremoniously dumped by phone on d-day. But when I lost four kilos in two weeks and passed out at the doctor’s office a week before d-day, it was suggested with a sneer that I had an eating disorder and was an unfit parent.
Poor Smoops. Cut from the kids’ college fund. No more free booze. The sorrow and the suffering.
Thank God for the family doctor. She believed me when I explained I was eating but the stress was burning it all off. She ran a cortisol test and every other panel and agreed that it was stress, not anorexia. She was no help to FW’s demonization/DARVO campaign and not-so-subtle threat to my custody of the children. Poor FW.
When I got the STI panel after D-Day and has to explain to the gyn at the practice that it was because FW cheated, the family doctor simply halted FW’s Viagra prescription without a word, sending him to scrounge sildenfil from dodgy sources on the web. She voted with her prescription pad. No pity for sparkle dick and sparkle twat. Wail.
hahahahaha “property of shmoopie”
Navigator, Fuckface had scratches on his back. Multiple scratches in a regular pattern. I expressed my concern. He said they were from working on the car. He was working on something alright. It was odd to me how much time he spent at a friend’s garage and yet the cars were never fixed. The dashboard looked like a Christmas Tree what with all the lights. I started checking to see if he really was at the garage. He was not.
Yes! I saw scratches on klootzak’s back when he got out of the shower. He said the same thing; they were from crawling under the car to work on it. He actually did do work on his car at times, so it was totally plausible.
He’s a cheating liar who lies.
I wondered after D-day if he was either relieved or secretly laughed at how gullible & dumb I was to buy into his ‘splaining? That haunts me still here & there ????
Mine admitted he had made fun of me to his whore about how I hadn’t figured it out
That was him, telling the truth occasionally when it was something painful for me. I think he believed he’s get points for honesty in addition to having his sadistic jollies. Nope.
It only helped me to decide that he is the lowest of the low amd dump his ass.
I just assume that anything shitty they could have done, they did.
Not on topic, but I remember when he told me in Marriage Conning that I had never satisfied him sexually. When I told him how much that hurt to hear, he said “ well you wanted me to be honest!” It took a couple years more of pick-me-dancing and psychology torture to discover that truth was not an indictment of me, but rather a trickle truth about his insatiable need for cheating.
I remember telling mine he had no empathy, he told me I was too trusting….
You being trusting is not a flaw; it is a normal thing in a marriage. But, sometimes it is used against us.
I remember the night fw told my best friend right in front of me after a random whore had hung all over him; that Susie wouldn’t believe he was fooling around unless he told me himself.
He was right, I wouldn’t have; until that night when he said that. That along with the random whore; and the way he had been acting the last couple months was when the light bulb went on.
Random whore was not his current whore; she was the best friend of his current whore.
Perfect example of DARVO Sandyfeet. It’s not cheater’s fault he is a psychopath and being sadistic – it’s your fault for being a target / empath and for being his victim ????♀️
WOOWWWW…that is some grade A narc gaslighting right there!
OMGGGG
I only just remembered the scratches in his back!!
Not just once.
OF COURSE he got them when he was running shirtless out on a bush track (translation for non-Australian, in the woods).
Ten years going to gay saunas.
And after Dday he once said:
“I’m a very good liar, and you were SO easy to lie to.”
Mine had scratches on his back too said he scratched himself in the shower.
Mine too!!!
However, he was unable to repeat that in front of me….place hard to get- unless someone else is scratching you
I never saw/noticed the back scratches, but I got to read ALL about them. Big deal with not just one, but two APs. Evidently, college girls love scratching older men’s backs.
Back scratch feee-vah!
What a dick. I also got the line that I was easy to lie to, but it was kind of like he was actually annoyed at how dumb I was. He said to me at DDay, “what did you think has been happening?” And I said, “I thought you were stressed and busy with work because that’s what you told me.” He literally rolled his eyes at me.
“I thought you were stressed and busy with work because that’s what you told me.”
That was the perfect response.
My fw told me the same shit and I bought it.
He also about two months before Dday, said to my best friend while we were working at a volunteer event where a random whore put her hands over his eyes and said guess who, while hanging on his back. He said: “Susie wouldn’t believe I was running around unless I told her” I said yes you are right. But that was the first and only lie I ever told him, because it was that very night because of that incident that the lightbulb went on. I knew he was involved with a woman; just didn’t know who.
It wasn’t random whore, she turned out to be exit whores best friend. Evidently she was working with whore to get it out in the open and get rid of me.
Well, he WAS running shirtless on a bush track, amirite? Some FW just say ‘laying pipe’ or ‘splitting wood’ or ‘plowing the field’ but yours has a nice regional flair.
Running shirtless but with scratches on his back…so he was running backwards.
Mine told me he was burned on his clavicle by a spark from a welding torch. He’s in construction so I bought it. But… he isn’t a welder. So, jokes on me!
Nah, if you had pointed that out, he would’ve just told you he was helping his welding co-worker. Don’t blame yourself for believing him.They got their bs covered at all angles ????
And when their bs lies get outed they will just scream that you are crazy etc.
So much screaming and pouting when I – well, when I anything. Normal, everyday interactions and routines were laden with land mines. Reading this thread, it’s blowing my mind how we all were steamrolled by this outrageous gaslighting. Even before I knew about the affairs (so, for most of the relationship), and even when I didn’t ask questions, the mindfucking was a constant. That covert coercion is insidious. It didn’t cross my mind that someone would be lying about things for no reason. I was completely in the dark and didn’t know to be suspicious. When my ex was taking “time and space” – he felt entitled to suddenly and unilaterally upend my life – it was before dday1 and I still didn’t suspect cheating, but I kept telling my sister that something didn’t add up.
Thanks to all the chumps who share stories, today and every day. CL/CN doesn’t just help chumps leave; these stories aren’t told anywhere else, and it’s helping me forgive myself and release some of the shame.
“Thanks to all the chumps who share stories, today and every day. CL/CN doesn’t just help chumps leave; these stories aren’t told anywhere else, and it’s helping me forgive myself and release some of the shame.”
I agree, bread&roses. But it’s also helping me to LAUGH!
Same! This, of all challenges, has me cracking up.
“these stories aren’t told anywhere else”–so true!
I haven’t been a chump but I read this blog every day just for the humour and common sense and feminism and insights into human nature.
Thanks people 🙂
“It didn’t cross my mind that someone would be lying about things for no reason. I was completely in the dark and didn’t know to be suspicious.”
Yep, and I had a good upbringing; and my dad treated my mother who had a lot of health issues with love and respect.
I just remember when we had been married just a few years, I had an outpatient procedure done. He brought me home from the hospital and then went out for some reason, I don’t remember what he told me. Anyway, he didn’t come home until the next morning. I had my five year old son, helping me get water and things like that.
When he came home the next morning he said he ran into one of the guys and got involved in an all night poker game in a guys van. I was mad of course; but I never questioned that ludicrous story. What the hell was wrong with me.
Even if I had decided I was not going to leave because of my son, I should have snapped to, and realized I needed to start taking college classes and getting myself ready to leave.
He didn’t even bring me any dammed flowers.
Fours years before dday I had to go back for another mammogram for just one breast. It was when they were going digital & when comparing the old type from the previous year to the new one the radiologist wanted to make sure all was good.
It was a snowy morning & the clinic was about a mile away. I asked my husband if he would drive me there. His response was “what you’re a big girl to drive in a little bit of snow.” Yeah, I knew that but I was very anxious about the re-xay. I went alone & all was well.
After the divorce I mentioned that to a friend & she was shocked. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t be there for support. So, was that a devaluation move? Will never know. Ex left 3 weeks after a dday I never saw coming.
Klootzak had to have his arm twisted to drive me for a biopsy and then sat in the waiting area grinning and smiling at his phone the whole time. Texting the then 24 year old AP, I’m sure. No reassurance or hand holding. I sat there with palms sweating about getting it done and all he would do is roll his eyes at me. They wouldn’t let me drive myself as I needed someone to drive me home. Had I known what his behavior was going to be, I would have asked a friend instead.
Right. Ex said to daughter after she confronted him after he was late for another family get together, “Mom thinks you’re cheating on her”. Him “Mom’s crazy,I would never do that”
That is the only line XH can come up with: “You’re crazy.” He really doesn’t even have the wherewithal to elaborate on it either. Just “You’re crazy.”
LTC Fuckface, man of honor,, “I will not tell a lie nor tolerate those who do.” , came home from the gym with no dirty gym clothes in his bag, smelling of a highly floral soap, not the soap used in the gym soap dispensers. There was no new soap in his gym bag next to his neatly folded, dry and clean gym clothes that I had chumpily packed for him. When confronted he became enraged that I would be looking in his gym bag. Seems it was ok for me to pack his bag and yet a moral failure on my part to unpack his gym bag.
He also had an otherworldly ability to go for a walk in a snowstorm and come home with no snow caked on his clothing, or on his person. Fuckface walked around the corner and hopped into her car. I saw her car drive by as she dropped him off. When confronted he was enraged that I was spying on him. Why she only gave him a ride, a perfectly innocent ride. I was a shrew and a harpy to suggest otherwise.
He is all her problem now, well hers and whatever gullible person he is trolling at the moment. He isn’t a faithful man.
Never trust anyone that boasts how they lead an honorable life, pretend to be above reproach and are quick to disparage those that do not meet their so-called standards. Pretty much guarantees they’re not honorable just sneaky pieces of shit.
Yup. If only I read this 5+ years ago, KB22.
I kinda knew he didn’t love me anymore. But that’s ok, I told myself, ltr’s change over time. And he’s always so focused on being a good person and doing the right thing, I can count on him to do right by his family, and that’s something I’ll always love and respect about him.
That’s right CN, I talked myself into it and gaslighted MYSELF. ????♀️
Yup, that was a tough memory in the months of wreckonciliation. Now it’s just ????????♀️ oh well, live & learn to trust your gut.
I also had a feeling that Cheater didn’t like me anymore. Something was “off.”
I thought well, it’s probably just a phase, maybe depression and he’d get over it.. he’s a “man of integrity,” a man of integrity wouldn’t cheat. That’s one of the things I admired about ex was his high moral standards. He was a rigid about following rules.
He couldn’t cheat, that wouldn’t be following the rules.
After all, he has high moral standards, just ask him.
One day I asked if he loved me, he his gruff response was, “I’m here aren’t I?” with an answer like that, why would I have any doubt? What was I thinking to question a man of integrity..
What was I thinking to believe anything that came out of his mouth.
These memories make me cringe today.
KB22-exactly, I was married to Mr. Integrity, I listened to ex rant endlessly for years that he’s a “man of integrity.” Always quick to point out the faults of others.
A man of higher standards than everyone else, arrogant, moralistic and critical.
You’re absolutely right, I was married to a sneaky piece of shit.
People of integrity don’t brag and give lectures telling you that they have integrity they show you by their behavior.
Asshat was also Mr. Integrity/Mr. Marine Corps, but when the French hauled him to court after I pressed charges for domestic violence, Mr. Integrity actually told me he was thinking about skipping off back to America! I pointed out that he had said a marine needed to “put on a suit and tie and take it on the chin like a man” but that obviously didn’t apply to him!
Yep. You’ve met my Wasband, I see.
???????????? This!
“He isn’t a faithful man.”
To say the least!
What were they doing, fucking in the car?
Mine didn’t make gym excuses, because he really did go to the gym seven says a week- just to be with her there. He never went again after they broke up. So much for his “I care about my health!” reasoning for overdoing it. They were often there for hours and I’m sure most of it was chit chatting. He didn’t get strong from it as one would if working out with dedication every day. I just thought it was because he is a weakling who used those sissy Nautilus weight machines and avoided free weights.
The one and only time I managed to coax him to work out with me on free weights, he couldn’t keep up and was sweating like a whore in church. I was worried that he might keel over. No doubt he’d only done it to show me up. That sure backfired on him. But I’d just given him one more reason to hate me. He couldn’t stand me being better at anything.
He went apeshit when I borrowed the mat he supposedly used for stretching at the gym. He had only used it a couple of times and it sat there for over a year unused. He snatched it away from me and said, like a five year old; “That’s mine! Get your own!”
Turns out it was because he had last used it while stretching with schmoopie. I guess he felt me using it would replace his STD carrying whore’s germs with clean, but undesirable, wife sweat.
Weird AF.
Ah yes:
Me, in the middle of a hug – “What do I smell? You smell kind of like perfume!!!”
FW: “Yeah, they changed the soap at the gym, I really hate it. I think I’ll carry some of my own from now on.”
I guess I should be thankful he showered, because it happens that it really turned him on to have sex with one of us and then with the other within as short a time as possible. And each of us thought she was the only sex partner.
I asked about a perfumey scent on him too, when exH came home from working late.
Told me it was one of those new plug-in air fresheners in his office.
Man of honor and integrity, indeed.
Major Kibbles said the lube in his suitcase was for masturbation. It was cheapo off-brand lube so I sorta still buy that excuse, even though I’ve never known him to keep such, or use up any non-cheapo lube we had, in the previous 15 years together.
Then – and this is off-topic just for ThirtythreeYears, he told me during wreckonciliation that someday I’d have to get over it and “treat him like my moral equal.”
Oh so high and mighty and superior! But no thank you, nice try, I’m out. You’re on your own with those delusions.
oh basically the story of how everything unraveled.
He invited me for a dancing event, one weekend in his hometown. It was a long weekend and a nice chance to visit his mother/stay with her, and a chance for him to see his dancing friends. You can sign up as a single or as a pair but usually women who sign up alone are at a big disadvantage because there’s always more women who sign up than men.
So he invites me to go dancing together but says he’s signed up already (by himself). I found it odd that he would not wait for my answer about the dance event because if I sign up alone, I don’t stand a chance of getting it. (But of course I spackled many years over his lack-of-organization, pretending he was some creative genius whose attention cannot be turned to the same administrative pesky things we mortals take care of). so I classify it as a case of “classic distracted FW” signing up without me. He says he knows the organizers quite well and he will write them an email to add my name to his so we become formally a dancing pair. He says he will take care of everything.
two weeks go by and nothing happens. In my mind, “classic forgetful partner” and I gently remind him to sign me up. The next day I receive a confirmation via email of my signing up, clearly stating his name as my partner. I wire the registration costs.
the next day I get an email from the organizers, telling me that they cannot find my dancing partner among the unpartnered men’s list. Can I double check the data and send them his contact info again? I chuckle to myself “he probably forgot to sign himself up.” (stupid chump) and I forward him the email and he says he will call up his friend and take care of it.
One week later, I receive another email from the organizers, telling me the same thing.
This time, I decide to take matters into my own hand and call the organizers to clear things out. She asks me for my partner’s name, I give her the name. She says he is not listed on the unpartnered men’s list. Can I give her the birthday date, maybe there was a spelling error when he registered?
I give her the birthday date of my partner and she says that she can find a name and a birthday corresponding to my partner, but not on the unpartnered list. She has a very hesitant tone and speaks very carefully.
I ask her if she can tell me who is the registration buddy of my partner. She says she cannot give me this information and I should have a conversation with my partner.
This is the very first hint of D-day. By that point, my partner was cold and distanced, the discard had actively started but I still didn’t understand what it was about. I thought it was work-related stress and was trying to support him as much as I can.
When I confronted him, he spun into a tale of “one of his classmates in dance class asked if she could sign him up with her, because she didn’t have anyone to go with, and he didn’t know how to say no to her without hurting her feelings.”
well what about my hurt feelings? what about me feeling like a fool when talking to the organizers on the phone? what about me, not being able to attend the music festival because you already went with someone else? on a long weekend?
He said he needed some time to himself with his friends, that he needed to rediscover his own identity, etc.
I foolishly believed all these excuses. I had made so many excuses for him, for years for his lack of organization, that I fully believed he was that “helpless”. I truly believed that he had signed up with someone else and forgot about it… for about a week. One week later, as I was doing grocery shopping, I heard a voice in my head saying “he’s lying to you. you’re the same age, you have the same educational background. He is able to plan scientific experiments that take months to conclude, to write, submit and defend a PhD thesis, to make financial plans and budgets. but he’s not able to remember signing up for an event with someone? he’s lying to you”.
I confronted him. He said that he was lying about forgetting because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
I stayed for 3 months longer with him, but these 3 months were hell. mostly because I was super paranoid, because I didn’t trust myself anymore to understand a situation correctly, that I felt so stupid and naive and gullible.
3 months later, came the full-blown D-Day. He tried to minimize it (“just a dinner, I wanted to kiss her but I couldn’t do that to you, I couldn’t live with myself if I did it”).
I struggled 3 more days with that information, whether I believed him or not.
January 29 2020, I wrote him a message to move his stuff out. We started the separation, I went NC
The last I heard of his news (in March 2020, I made the mistake of checking his reddit account), he was writing about his happy relationship with OW. “it’s the healthiest relationship I have been in, we have amazing communication, we are transparent about everything, both of us have a long history of failed relationships and we have learned from them”
That was a sledgehammer to the stomach. but it was the necessary step I needed to go full NC, block him everywhere including reddit, email, linkedin, block his mother (who was still writing me urging to reconciliate), go to therapy and working on getting to tuesday.
Sorry for writing such an odyssey but it was very cathartic
^ “But of course I spackled many years over his lack-of-organization, pretending he was some creative genius whose attention cannot be turned to the same administrative pesky things we mortals take care of”.
Thanks for the laugh! I can relate to this statement 🙂
“it’s the healthiest relationship I have been in, we have amazing communication, we are transparent about everything”
???? The delusion is strong.
“both of us have a long history of failed relationships and we have learned from them.”
Gee, I wonder why they both have a long history of failed relationships.
There’s a big subset of cheater (covert narcs) who are COWARDS in addition to all of their other lack of character traits.
So true! Cowards who, when they realize consequences from their shitty behavior, get stuck on the self-pity channel (at least that’s true of my covert narc x). “No one is suffering more than I.” #allaboutme #sadeveryday
Pathetic!
I bet my ex would say he is suffering more than your ex…
Adelante and Spinach, let them compete! Someone should host the Cheater Olympics – events like “Suffering”, “Toilet Texting”, “Parking Lot Orgasm”, “Your Fault”, “Plausible Underemployment”…
More Friday challenges!
I volunteer to be one of the judges!
True, Mother… at this juncture, I believe I could author a book on covert narcissism.
I can also provide a couple of chapters. After the 5th or 6th D-day I was trying to untangle the skein by googling long term lying/affairs etc and came across. Scared the shit out of me & I had an hours long panic attack as it described him so well.
I’d never heard the term before but it made me realise that the 12 happiest years of my life, spent with someone I trusted and loved completely who I’d thought was the very best of men, was an evil self serving liar.
He never needed to serve up lame excuses and even had me colluding in his affairs to the point where I went against my own values (he had me believing the Ester Perel shit that monogamy is unnatural) he was such a master at deception. I pity his new victim.
When I read my first book about narcissism, I had the opposite reaction. It described klootzak exactly. I nearly wept at the truth of it. The explanation of what he was made sense. And it also meant that I was NOT being jealous, insecure, codependent, or any of the other labels he tried to pin on me. The gaslighting, triangulation, all of it. It was as though someone gave me the key to unlock the code. I was no longer unclear. I had absolute clarity for the first time in years. And it’s uncurable! There is no fixing a narc. All you can do is go NC. So the feeling I had that I would need to divorce and walk away, well, I finally accepted that my instinct to end the marriage was right. Understanding that piece freed my mind a great deal.
The same thing happened to me when I read my first book on covert narcissists.
So many strange things suddenly made sense!
“both of us have a long history of failed relationships and we have learned from them”
That they are together is proof that they have learned nothing.
An illicit relationship has “unhealthy” baked into it, and you can’t get it out any more than you can get the eggs out whole after the cake comes out of the oven. But what else would cheaters say?
Thank you VH! You always have the most eloquent words.
Very good analogy, VH! I’m copying that down for my “rainy day” letter to myself! Thanks for that! Also reminds me of the old adage “You can’t turn a hoe into a housewife.”
The references to their “healthy, most honest ever” affair relationships seems to be very common, though I can understand why it hurt so much to read – because in itself, it’s a complete lie. He’s lying to himself, too, but then we all know these FWs believe their own BS.
I agree. “Health” is a word often co-opted. If we do things for our “health,” we are good, smart, people. If we do things for pleasure, they can be morally questioned.
My EX claims I was bad for his “health.” In effect, he describes me as a disease.
Strangely enough, his health did not improve after our divorce. It got much worse.
But who can criticize a person pursuing “health”? It is a great word for avoiding blame and responsibility!
Thanks for replying, Shintoga. I think reading that sentence hurt even more than the separation. I was so deep in my depression and reading about how happy he was and how healthy their relationship was made me feel erased and invisible. I felt like such a fool, grieving him so badly.
My life changed when I found CL and I learned how cheaters all proclaim their happiness with their twu-wuv, how they love kibbles, triangulating and how they are great at image management. “trust that he sucks” was my daily motto.
Thank you CL and thank you CN for being an integral part of my healing and rediscovering my self-worth.
People in healthy, happy relationships that are above board never have to broadcast it to the world. Sorry, but only warped individuals feel the impulse to spew that phony horseshit on social media and of course many kiss ass bozos on social media will engage.
Cheaters will never state, I was a selfish, deceitful piece of shit that discarded my spouse and family. They will instead tell the world how happy and healthy the new relationship is because they need to insinuate how abused and miserable their life was for years. They only cheated under special circumstances don’t you see? These nitwits really think the world give’s a rat’s behind they are finally happy.
After he started living with AP 33 years younger than him, his texts would say “why can no one except that I’m happy”.
My son (older than AP) would say Yes, we are all concerned about his dumbass happiness.
I know a lady. I told her a very brief synopsis of my relationship going all sideways etc. She said “I’m so lucky, that will never happen to me. I married my best friend. We have the best marriage. “ Dramatically enough, she ended up being murdered by him. ???? So sad.
Holy ????, this.
???????????? this, this, this! You’re on fire today KB22!
What you say is also true when they flaunt their improved relationship “with themselves” or their sudden enlightenment (even after the affair blew up in their faces).
It was the chump that was holding them back, sure.
Sparkledick bellowed in my ear that he was a failure and that it was my fault. My eardrum still buzzes just at this memory. And I still did not turn on my BS detector.
Those asshats really go for the jugular don’t they? Mine asked for a divorce out of the blue, refused to tell me why when I begged him to tell me his reasons “because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings”!!! Once I finally agreed to separate, I had figured out what might be the problem at that point, I asked him if he was sure “we” were not making a mistake. He told me “he was the happiest he’d ever been”. One week after walking out, leaving me and our two little kids behind… Textbook, all of them. It hurts to remember this, but helps remind us we’re much better off without them.
I am sorry FTS. Their kind of happiness is a knife with the sharpest edges that hurts the people who used to love them the most. It’s good to remember how far we’ve come along in our healing journey
Strange how a single sentence or word can make it all click. Shortly after his abandonment my Asshat texted our oldest daughter that he was “miserable in our relationship” (but still wanted to have good relationships with his kids). Seeing that word “miserable” was a gob smack.
He had been future-faking and lying to me for years and never said he was unhappy even when asked direct questions about it. I was always the one taking the temperature of the relationship after his first known affair 8 years earlier but he just lied, continued to make plans with me, and never let on that things were less than A-OK. He lied like breathing and when confronted he said I couldn’t handle the truth. Blame shifted. He would sooner cut off an arm than deal with anything directly.
My very ~existence~ made him miserable. He wanted to go fuck around and I stood in the way of that. I am sure his half-our-age Schmoopie ate that up and was sure she could fix everything for him.
These things are unforgivable. It did cost him his daughters and they are NC. I am sure he thinks that price was worth his freedom from his misery.
My ex started going on overnight trips with his friend Bill. My ex said that Bill had a hunting cabin in the mountains and Bill might be selling it and he might be interested in buying it. Old chumpy me never thought to ask to go see it with him. About a year after D day I found out that Skankella’s best friends husband had a cabin. I never til this day met his friend Bill lol. Looking back I should have realized that he was cheating. Because my ex never liked to stay overnights at strange places.
My ex also started to manskape. I found the odd. When I asled him why he suddenly cared about his bodyhair. He told me that he it was cleaner and more comfortable to have less body hair. I believed him. There were so many signs that he was cheating. I trusted him and never thought that he would cheat. And cheat with my cousin.
Yeah mine suddenly went to a salon to get Brazilians. He didn’t lie about it though. He said that sex was better without the hair. I just thought he was referring to the sex we had. Now I realise he wasn’t.
Sorry for the typos
I found out about the OW in October of 2013. Ex and I were then trying to “work” on our marriage while he took the affair deeper under ground. That Christmas, I found a receipt in his coat pocket for a pair of women’s UGG boots. I asked him who he bought boots for, because at that point I knew he wasn’t getting me anything for Christmas. He told me to stop being so nosey, this was why our marriage would never work because of my trust issues, and since I really needed to know, that was a receipt for his new work boots!!
I laughed at him and said you wear boots with the fur to work on an assembly line? He stomped off.
To this day, whenever I hear the song Apple bottom jeans, I remember this memory. Lol
I’m getting a whole music video thing going in my head starring your ex and his fellow assembly line workers pole dancing in “apple bottom jeans” and “boots with the fur” on the shop floor.
Haha as soon as I saw the phrase boots with the fur, the music started…
While I was lining up my ducks and just days after realizing the RIC was total bullshit (yes, I needed to take part of the blame for his decision to cheat), my son found nudes of him and Schmoopie in a family shared account. My son told me and I told him to confront the cheater while he was home for a few days. My son decided not take my advice though. He showed the cheater the photos (after downloading and saving them and it also contained some video). The cheater of course blew up but told DS that “well everybody sends these nowadays. It is just a little bit of fun and doesn’t mean anything”. This is coming from a man who is close to 70 (Schmoopie is in her 30s). Sorry but I don’t send this type of stuff to friends and neither does my 25 year old son. How odd that we are so behind the times. The dick pics and twat shots went to the lawyer. It made my lawyer pretty darn happy. Hooray for cheaters being stupid.
End result is he is getting the gift of divorce and son is no contact with the FW. Going through the process is really horrible but knowing that at the end I will be FW free is the light at the end of the tunnel. These two FWs deserve each other.
Sorry for the typos.
The typo comment was supposed to be under my post.
My whore/fucking ex husband and I were going to go for a bike ride one day. Both of our bikes needed air in the tires, so we stood there together with the bike pump filling them up.
While filling his tires, his bike fell over and a condom fell out of his drink holder. Bounce bounce boom right there on the ground in front of both of us.
I guess we both stood there looking at it, until I looked up at him and said “what the fuck?”
His only response was “I don’t know how it got there, what do you think? I’m riding my bike to go fuck someone?” I believe I said something like “yeah, that’s kinda what it looks like”
The really sad thing about this story is that I honestly don’t remember how we got past that. Did we go on the bike ride? Was there a huge fight? I don’t remember any of that. It’s amazing how hard I spackled for that motherfucker.
Ugh! I found chapstick in the car with pink lipstick on it he said he didn’t know how it got there! I suppose technically that would be true he just left out the part that a hooker was sucking his dick…. Asshole
Oh, here’s another dumb one.
There was the time that the whore-Fucker and I got in his car, me in the passenger seat.
On the floorboard I saw something silver, shiny and round. My first thought was that something popped off the dashboard. With absolutely zero accusation in my voice I picked it up and said “what’s this”?
His pissed off reaction, as he quickly snatched the bracelet out of my hands was “What? I drove a bunch of colleagues to lunch the other day and someone must’ve dropped this!!!”
I remember saying “OK dude, no reason to get defensive, I thought something had broken off the dashboard.” Then I abruptly forgot all about it until After d-day because I’m a dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb chump.
I got in the car and found lace underwear on the floor of the passenger seat. Ex had no explanation. He just looked shocked and said he had no idea how they got there. Maybe some kids threw them through the window. I can’t remember how we got past that either. Deep denial on my part, obviously.
It is amazing isn’t it?! I found underwear, condoms, jewelry, lip gloss. It took me a shockingly long time to figure it all out. I think it’s because we look at the world differently, or at least did… and we trusted them. Which says more about us being trustworthy and less about them being worthy of the trust (which they clearly weren’t).
Ugh! I found chapstick in the car with pink lipstick on it he said he didn’t know how it got there! I suppose technically that would be true he just left out the part that a hooker was sucking his dick…. Asshole
Maybe it was a bogart.
Tupelo –
Isn’t it just amazing how our minds work?
I can’t tell you the amount of times that my asshole ex-husband’s lies were flimsier than onion skin.
Did I believe his lies? No, not really usually. Did I let his lies just roll past me? Yes, I think I did. I don’t know if it was my heart or my brain, but some protective mechanism in my psyche was clearly at play. Ick.
“I don’t know if it was my heart or my brain, but some protective mechanism in my psyche was clearly at play.”
I am certain that was how I was. For at least the last couple years. And really, I don’t know if it helped me or hindered me. I always think, dang if I had just gotten out of there a few years earlier. But, who know maybe the extra time was beneficial to me in way I don’t even realize.
Being trustful is not dumb. It mostly reveals that you yourself are trustworthy: since you’re not the kind of person who’d cheat on a spouse, you tend to assume your spouse is the same way.
I’ve give you naive maybe, but naive is not the same as dumb.
Thanks for this, Involuntary Georgian. We all need to be more kind to ourselves, so instead of beating myself up for not recognizing things sooner, I’m going to celebrate my being trusting.
Thanks. Well, if nothing else, I’m not naïve anymore. If that shit happened today, the driver would have a shiny new silver bracelet to wear… up his ass.
In the middle of the day at work, klootzak called me to pick him up. He should have been at work, too, so I was confused. He had apparently just randomly decided to take the day off and go hiking. On a Wednesday. While he was off “hiking,” vandals broke into his car and stripped it. (We lived in Hawaii and it is common for the locals to troll the parking lots near trail heads and do this. They call it “going to the bank” because military personnel stationed there often spend their deployment bonuses on nice cars all souped up with the latest audio equipment and whatnot, so they like to strip them bare. I actually learned this from a Hawaiian I worked with who said the United States stole their islands so it is their way of getting back. Glad I don’t live there anymore… but I digress.) Anyway, his car was actually broken into but why was he out hiking? And where did his wedding ring go?
Well, his wedding ring was stolen because he left it in the car! I asked why he would leave his wedding band in the car while going hiking. He said – you will love this – that the Navy taught him that if you wear a ring while hiking or some such activity, well, you could suddenly need to grab a tree or branch to not lose your balance and the ring could get caught and rip your finger off with it! So he left his wedding band in the car for safety reasons. ???? Chumpy me bought him a replacement band. I needn’t have wasted my money….
He had in his backpack with him a book by Khalil Gibran. I found out after D-day and reading a lot of sick emails that he likes to give Gibran books to his APs as gifts, probably so he can look sensitive and intellectual. I have never read anything by Gibran and would probably love to if not that I find him triggering now. Maybe someday when I am truly at meh I will be able to read one without being fixated on the fact that this was the author klootzak used to woo his APs.
I got the dangerous wedding ring spiel, too.
Gibran, yes, well that figures.
OWhore’s literary tastes ran to McManus and Saint-Exupéry.
In one of her gag-worthy endless emails to FW she promised to read McManus aloud to him an their “next long car ride.” (Personally I find McManus at the intellectual level of Jr High School – apologies if he’s someone’s fave author).
When she was melancholy about him not being able to spend time with him – because he had commitments with me – she quoted extensively from “The Little Prince” – smarmy garbage about how he had tamed her like the Fox or something and how once you tame something you are responsible for it ????????????. (I later found the copy she gave him and put it out with the recycle.)
Too bad FWs and OWs ruin perfectly acceptable (if not maybe exactly to our taste) books, music, places, etc. through their assholery.
Re removing the wedding band to save the finger must be in the “Naval Rule Book”. My FW used the exact same excuse SMH.
It’s in the “Air Force Rule Book” as well. I’ve heard that one, too.
CS, It must be a military thing. Cheater was in the Air Force and I heard the wedding band, save the finger story. Cheater lost his wedding band twice.
He had to remove it while flying because he might lose his finger. I remember asking how he could lose a finger while flying. He said while checking the engine.
Cheater is a pilot, Pilots aren’t mechanics, they don’t work on planes, they fly them.
*I believed him*.
Brit, mine also flew. He claimed he saw someone lose a finger on the carrier. I have no doubt that there’s many dangerous opportunities for injury on a carrier. But I’m leaning toward “just another excuse” to appear available.
Mine was in the army and he really wasn’t permitted to wear it at work because of the machinery they worked with but he stopped wearing it outside of work too. I let it go.
Years and years later I took a kick boxing class and actually hurt my hand because of my ring. I stopped wearing it to let my finger heal because it was painful. He threw a little fit. I was shocked because rings clearly had never been a big deal to him from what I saw. He was already dating my replacement at that time and was planning on leaving me and fantasizing about killing me. But how dare I take off my rings to let an injury heal when he never wore his. They’re such hypocrites.
I wore my ring on a chain while I was pregnant and for about 6 months due to weight gain and a tendon issue in my hand and wrist also pregnancy related.
After DDay1, he brought up me not wearing my ring as one of the reasons he thought it was okay to fuck someone else.
Oh he did, did he ? Okey dokey. What a moron.
All the cheaters have read the same playbook of lies and deceit!
Don’t be sad MrWonderful’sEx, I have to be very honest and say despite loving the occasional poem, I find Khalil Gibran to be a very boring monotonous read. I much prefer his paintings to his writings.
Here is a fitting quote from Khalil Gibran’s “the prophet” though
“You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care, nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.”
Freedom comes on a tuesday!
For years, from our late 30s to early 40s, he woukd go to a previous coworker’s house to help her with her taxes. She is single, childless, works one job, and is intelligent enough to complete basic tax forms. He would be gone nearly the entire day every year, and come back home in a great mood. I once asked why he didn’t invite her to our house so we could grill and hang out while they got that done, and he blew off the idea without any explanation as to why not. I understand now.
Wow, sounds just like my cheating ex-FIL. Except he was helping his widowed sister-in-law with her business.
He was really good with helping SILs in distress.
I seriously think I have not an ex-cousin-in-law, but an ex-SIL. She was suspicous herself and I helped her get a DNA test sith her siblings: it is possible.
1) On smelling like booze and cheap perfume upon returning from 6am Walmart trips (“it’s less crowded then”—it sure was because it was still closed during COVID lockdown hours): “It’s my Rogaine that you smell. They must have done something new with the fragrance.” ????
2) On working late certain Friday’s (“Fucking Friday’s always suck” direct text quote): He was a doctor and claimed, during the first COVID lockdown, to be swamped at work… except all elective procedures had been cancelled. He must have laughed when he typed those texts—he’d sneak her into his office.
3) On withdrawing $600 multiple times a week: “I like having cash around”. Yeah to pay hookers, gamble and drink at 3am when he told me he was walking the neighborhood at a time when he wouldn’t run into people… ????
4) The $5000 he withdrew on his birthday to pay for the hooker… it was his birthday present to himself. I shouldn’t be mad because I found out before he gave it to her, damn it. And why shouldn’t he carry $5000 in his car? How dare I be so controlling.
5) She shaved a patch of hair off of his chest—twice. The first time was before I knew about her and I asked wth had happened. He couldn’t even come up with an excuse. The second time, we were in the throws of marriage counseling, when he swore he wasn’t seeing her (“I’m looking for your stolen jewelry” a block from her apartment, behind a grocery store according to Find my iPhone). I knew as soon as I saw the ridiculous shaved patch that the liar was a lying.
Dr Pinocchio had sooo many lies. At this point, I doubt he even knows he’s lying anymore. His entitlement is off the charts.
The Rogaine changed its scent! ROFLMAO. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
That nearly made me blow coffee out a nostril. You just can’t make this shit up. But FWs can, apparently!
What’s with the AP’s penchant for shaving and scratching? It’s like a thief who purposefully reveals a clue to the cops because she’s proud of her achievement.
They’re marking “their” territory.
Ha ha, like the dawgs they are!
I got a bill from our clinic’s office for some lab tests and i called The Reverend Cheaterpants because he hadn’t had any appointments and then the clinic office and complained because clearly this was a mistake.
Genius had had STD testing with the explanation that his buddy said sometimes STD tests could detect cancer (buddy had had cancer twice; this was a complete fabrication on Rev Cheaterpants’ part). He had paid cash, but the clinic billed our insurance. So while I was chewing out the billing office, he was frantically calling to try to get it marked as paid.
The funniest thing is that we live near a city. If he had gone to an STD clinic and paid cash and heck—given them a fake name—I would never have known. As it is, the local medical office thinks he’s absolutely shit for lying to me and bringing them into it. And the NP is still salty about the STD cancer thing because he tried to tell her that he knew more than she did.
After DDay, I asked about the STD test (and got tested myself, of course). He said “that’s actually a funny story.” I replied that somehow I didn’t think I would see the humor in it. I suspect that one of his APs wanted to see a clean bill of health.
I found a bill for a home lab company, I don’t know for sure but I assume he was testing for sti’s. He was t particularly health conscious, but would have gone to his pcp if it was anything else.
While I was in the dark about his affair my cheating ex told me & my son he was going skiing with his friend Ron for the weekend. Chumpy me made him lunch, my son put his skis in his car with his bags. I then asked him if he needed more clothes which he said no. Sunday he returned saying he couldn’t call me bc of heavy snow or something. Few days later I checked his credit card statement & saw he never went away with restaurants,
hotel receipts & liquor store he went to. Plus his cell phone records showing calls to whores phone for months
When I confronted him he said nothing, wouldn’t answer me. I knew then my suspicions were real. We were married 35 years. So heartbreaking ????
There was a story once about a husband who was “going hunting” with a buddy. The wife packed his bag (is it only me that thinks that a grown-ass man should be capable of packing for himself?). When he came home he was absolutley livid because she “hadn’t packed any underpants for him”. I guess she got the last laugh when she explained that the were in his gun case!
I decided to surprise him and get into the shower with him. I pulled the curtain and there was his back with long fingernail scratches. I asked where did he get those scratches and his answer was that he got them when he fell at work against a wall and slid down it.
He shaved all the hair off his privates because he felt too hot !?
Klootzak shaves his, too, and claims the same reason but only when he is about to go on a work trip. He allegedly drives 4 hours north for work trips where it is actually colder so not sure why little jimmy and the twins would feel hotter when he leaves town.
???????? Best laugh I’ve had in who knows how long – thx!
Yes the shaving before work trips! That’s was a big ???? That and him mysteriously going mia, plus the hotel where his co-workers were staying was booked and he had to say at a much nicer more expensive hotel nearby.
“Little Jimmy and the twins” ! ????????
That’s a new one for me
The usual phrase is “Big Jim and the twins,” but that is not applicable in klootzak’s case.
I assumed as much ???? Micro penis the size of a cocktail wiener or some such. The need to name one’s genitals is something I will never understand ????
Mine did it bc it was itchy while hunting. Pretty sure he was hunting for something other than deer, ducks, bear…
Omg I didn’t know this was a common thing! Mine shaved his because it “gets caught in his underwear” what the hell are they shaving it for?
My attorney felt it was so indicative of cheating she listed it in the lawsuit???????????? he later told me he was terrified to “man groom” after that. But I don’t believe him especially if the AP’s like it.
I blame porn for the manscaping trend. Hairless for men and women these days. My doctor told she sees disasters due to this new norm. Shaving mishaps, infected ingrown hair follicles, infections from skin on skin frottage (especially when one person has a std). ????
See above
I didn’t realize this was a thing! I found out they were shaved when I touched him when we were in bed. He said he had read in Forum Magazine that women preferred it.
I was told this story also.
I was told he wanted to try something new for me.
“I did it for you” is such a red flag for me. New manscaping? “I thought you might like it.” Finding hidden boner pills? “I wanted it to be better for you.” Secret dating profile? “I thought we had met on that site, and was looking for old messages from you.”
If they kept it from you, and then say it’s “for you” – they are 100% lying
HA! That’s an awesome excuse!
They really think that their willie looks bigger that way!
Forge on
LIS
Until I donated blood for the first time yesterday, I had always admired cheating bastard ex for faithfully donating every 60 to 90 days.
So when I was going through the screening process yesterday and answering the multiple questions involving high risk sexual activity, the light switch turned on.
I asked the screener, “If I had answered yes to any of the questions involving high risk sexual activities, what would you do?” He said they would do a quick blood screen to determine if the donor was eligible or not.
So, now I know it was a method he used to check for STDs. Who knew?
Mine did the same thing!! He was always so eager to get the results when they came in, claiming to be checking his cholesterol. Well, surprise! They don’t do a full screen. They only check for a few of the serious ones.
So THAT’S why he donated so much blood! I had no freaking idea! He also got tested for HIV, and hepatitis at work pretty often after “needle stick injuries.” He was an ICU nurse. Funny, I’m an ICU nurse as well, and I didn’t get anywhere NEAR that many needle stick injuries.
May their dicks rot off…
I can’t my ex’s hasn’t already. It was looking pretty damned ugly those last few years.
She spent a lot of time locked in the bathroom with her phone, and I mean hours at a time when the kids and I were at home. When either kids or I enquired whether she was OK she would just tell us to leave her alone as she was suffering from constipation.
I now know this is when she was texting her AP (her iPhone was synched with an iPad that our youngest daughter used and it all came out a few months later), but she was right about one thing ….. she was (and still is) full of sh*t.
LFTT
Lol at “full of sh*t.” Well played there!
I’ve told this one before. He was allegedly attending the surveyors’ annual drink and shag fest in Cannes – MPIM. He’s a lawyer. One of the highlights of his year. Much excitement. He never contacted me while he was there. I was cool wife and respected the need for both of us to have independent time. In 2018, the year before the discard started, he returned home in the afternoon. I arrived back from work that evening. Ex had a large black eye. I asked what happened. ‘I was coming out of the loos and this surveyor was coming in. He hit me in the face with the door handle. We were both drunk’. I believed the ‘drunk’ piece as he was always drunk when socialising. The rest? Not so much. More likely that the surveyor objected to the cut of his jib.
He was prone to being punched in the face. Before he met me, when out with exgfOW in a northern English town, someone ‘punched me in the face for no reason’. With hindsight the reason would have been that he either was behaving badly at the time or that he had behaved badly in the past. He’s an arrogant arse and proud of it! I did slap him once, shortly before we married, because he was drunk again, and smirking about having turned up home hours after he said he would be home. I have no idea why I was moved to smack him on that occasion. It hadn’t happened before and did not happen after despite the drunken smirking being a common theme of our relationship. It did not cross my mind to cancel the wedding as I put it down to wedding stress. Now? My body was telling me that this man was not going to be good for me. We had been together for 8 years by this point and remained together for a further 18 years. I learnt how to endure. How wonderful not to have to do that any more and congratulations to exgfOW. Third time lucky for her ????
“He hit me in the face with the door handle” – how tall was your ex FW, exactly, if a door handle can hit him in the face? Or did the surveyor get so mad at him he’d ripped it off before he hit him with it? ????
I’ve posted this before but I was engaged back in the 80’s to what I now realize was a sociopath. He was working down in the Turks & Caicos (before it turned into a tropical resort destination) long line fishing. The day before I was to pick him up at the Miami airport he called me to say he just got out of the hospital, nearly died because a buoy snapped and hit him in the neck. He had sustained a hematoma. I picked him up and said that just looks like a huge hickey and he was so upset that I was making fun of his “injury”. I can’t believe that I actually believed him! Anyway the actual cause of his “injury” showed up in Miami about a month later, pregnant. Initially of course I was devastated, didn’t eat or sleep for two weeks but ended up to be such a blessing. Who knows how much longer I would have wasted my time with that loser.
Mine worked in New York I stayed in Alabama working and raiding 3 children. He would come home on the weekends. One time back home I notice he is completely shaved. I said “why did you do that” his response was “I got bored in the hotel room and decided to trim then just shave it all. I like it better like that”. I know who likes it that way now. ????
I had the same experience. My X worked overseas, came home for Christmas. He got dressed next to me and I could see that he was shaved. I asked and the answer was “For you”. Nothing happened, but he moved his clothes out of the bed room to the guestroom that day. I was told so I have more space for my clothes. All of this when we had a dead bed room for 4 years.
I was nearly 9 months pregnant when I noticed fingernail scratches on his back. He had just gotten out of the shower. I asked him how he got the scratches, and he said that when he was at the gym playing basketball with the guys, a woman showed up at the gym and asked if she could play with them. He said she had really long fingernails, and she scratched his back when he was going for a rebound or something like that. Bless his heart.
I am shocked by all the back scratching stories! Who… who does this? I thought this was just a trope from 80’s movies where they couldn’t show sexy times without getting an R rating, lol
Immediately after the birth of our first grandchild (about 5 months before D-day), I stayed on to help with the newborn. X, who knew an opportunity for cheating when he saw it, drove back to our home in a different state, using the dog as an excuse. It seemed plausible.
The next day he said he would drive back to help with the baby but added that he felt a bit ill– cold symptoms. I told him that he probably shouldn’t come if he feels sick. He became enraged that I would suggest that he would ever endanger a newborn and verbally stomped off, muttering something about visiting his male friend instead because “Dan doesn’t care about sniffles.” Later I received a photo of a wild flower, which I guess he thought “proved” he was on a hike with Dan. I bought it.
He visited Dan so often during those last months that on D-day I thought those two were having an affair.
Dan’s wife would later tell me that he hardly ever visited her husband.
Fast forward to today. The fucker has the OW full time and hasn’t seen that granddaughter in two years. As for Dan, he remains friends with x even though he was used repeatedly as an alibi. I don’t get it.
(I know this is meant as a fun exercise, but my enduring rage has snuffed out any snark I might have.)
All of a sudden he started wearing black underwear. The kind with the longer legs.
I thought it was weird because he is so cheap I had to be the one to throw the white briefs away when they were visibly expired or he would have kept wearing them for who knows how long. He used to brag about how little he needed to pack when going on any kind of trip. Don’t you know how much room a clean pair of underwear for each day you are away takes up in your suitcase and you can save space by bringing only two pairs and washing one in the sink every night? ????
Then one day he bought black long-legged underwear. Lots of it. And he does not look like the Calvin Klein billboard model.
I don’t remember any physical marks. I’m having a vague memory of back scratches as I write this. But that black underwear was a fashion hickey IMHO.
Fashion hickey!!! LMAO!
Ah yes, I too had a FW who decided very suddenly at 43 that he had to manscape himself. Because it made him “feel younger” and because the hair was “so gross.” Except he hadn’t ever done it before (together for 20+ yrs at that point), I had never complained about the hair, he never seemed bothered by it before, and – the kicker – he only manscaped before business trips. When I finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together, it seemed so obvious and I felt like the world’s dumbest chump. I didn’t even bother to ask about the timing of the shaves – by that point, I had all the info I needed.
The manscaping seems to be the red flag these days. My STBX came out of the shower one day and I was shocked to see he was totally shaved. Yup, at 56 it seems it suddenly dawned on him that he “was sweaty down there after working out”. That along with buying his own laundry basket and refusing to let me do his laundry anymore (after 30 years?) because “you just don’t know how I like it done”. It seems so obvious to me now, but I was in the throes of spackle.
Klootzak started insisting on doing the laundry, too. Same reason. He claimed I ruined clothing, which I never did! In fact, I ran more loads than he did because I would keep red clothes separate and do a load of delicates on gentle cycle. Yet he accused me of not knowing how to do laundry right. Of course, he always acted like I couldn’t do anything right. WTH is their issue with laundry?
I don’t remember my fw shaving, but this was before the
pre-pubescent craze took off. And whore was only five years younger, so still in the same mindset I guess.
I always did the bikini clean up, but never had the urge to have them yanked out by the roots.