Other Woman Asks Chump Lady to Inform the Wife About an Affair
A mistress writes to Chump Lady requesting her help to inform a betrayed wife about an affair the OW had with her husband. Now that he dumped her, she thinks the wife should know.
***
Dear Chump Lady,
I would like to tell you my story and ask for your help if it’s possible. (Sorry but I used Google translate!)
I had a passionate but sad relationship with a man who was in a civil partnership with a woman.
They had two young children. I was also in a civil partnership, but I decided to tell my husband everything, as I wanted to leave him. The other man said nothing to his wife, even though he was pressuring me to leave my partner and live with him. He wanted me to tell him “I love you” often.
I needed time to get my life in order before taking the plunge. I ended up feeling a lot of love for him, but he gradually withdrew from the relationship, thinking I wasn’t fully committed. I had even managed to get an apartment for him/us, and then he left for good, leaving me with cold, distant, even curt and abrupt messages, avoiding the dates I proposed.
I had asked him several times if it was really over with his wife.
He always answered yes, supposedly planning to move soon. He listed his wife’s flaws, surely to justify his infidelity. And just when things were getting serious between us, he would change his tune, saying, “She’s nice, she’s a friend.” And suddenly, he found qualities in her that he couldn’t give up. I had opened my heart to him…
I regularly messaged him to ask how he was doing. Nothing, no reply. He gave me a bunch of reasons: my wife is kind, we don’t have any tension, I want to stay with my children, she might tell my whole family and my father would disown me.
In one of my last messages, I told him I understood his avoidant attachment style and his behavior, and that I didn’t hold it against him, that we would surely maintain a strong, invisible bond between us. And now, he’s subtly coming back, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He’s observing me.
He’s a cowardly and fearful man. He’ll never tell his wife.
He cherishes his comfort and routine. This whole affair has robbed me of my peace, and a year later, I still can’t move on. I think about it every day.
His wife has questioned him several times about possible infidelity. He’s always denied it, always lied. I think it would be wise to warn this woman and confess to her.
I don’t want revenge, but I want to tell her the truth because she suspected something, and he fed her a long lie. He’ll probably do it again.
My pain will be acknowledged, and I will be freed from the burden of being the only one who knows, making the lie impossible and placing responsibility where it belongs.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
I am so afraid of the consequences for my current life (which I can’t seem to live to the fullest): my child, my partner (we’re trying to mend our relationship, it’s difficult), my job (we were colleagues).
Could you perhaps consider sending an email to this woman, saying that I confided in you about this and that I left it up to you to decide how to proceed with revealing the truth?
Kind regards,
Gutless
***
Dear Gutless,
You didn’t leave me a screen name so I made one up for you.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
Yes, Gutless, you are being cowardly. Also incredibly tone deaf. And manipulative. I’m the “Leave a Cheater” lady. I support chumps, victims of infidelity, not cheaters. Yet Other Women frequently seem confused on this point after they get dumped. Suddenly telling the wife is now of great importance. Because, gosh, you aren’t special. The FW lied to you too!
This does not make us united in sisterhood. You KNEW he was a cheater. The chumped wife is an innocent you conspired against. I’m #TeamChump.
To me, your motivation appears to be getting your ex-boyfriends’s wife to leave him. So then what? He sees the errors of his ways? And comes crawling back to you, so you can chuck your consolation prize husband for a second time? Or he doesn’t come back, but he can choke on some of the pain for once?
The chumped wife’s welfare is clearly NOT your foremost concern.
I had a passionate but sad relationship with a man who was in a civil partnership with a woman. They had two young children.
In other words, your “passion” trumped those kids’ intact home life and her well-being. In your value system, getting sexual attention from a married coworker eclipses:
- Not being stupid on the job.
- His wife’s lack of consent.
- Hurting young children.
But, this all falls under “sad.”
The other man said nothing to his wife, even though he was pressuring me to leave my partner and live with him. He wanted me to tell him “I love you” often.
This toxically lopsided situation was okay with you — why?
I needed time to get my life in order before taking the plunge. I ended up feeling a lot of love for him, but he gradually withdrew from the relationship, thinking I wasn’t fully committed.
That’s rich, coming from a married man.
Why do you think this idiot is a prize?
I had even managed to get an apartment for him/us, and then he left for good, leaving me with cold, distant, even curt and abrupt messages, avoiding the dates I proposed.
Wow. This didn’t go at all as you expected, huh? I guess you weren’t sufficiently committed. Good luck getting that security deposit back.
I bet it is at this juncture that dawning awareness for his chumped wife’s welfare entered your mind.
I had asked him several times if it was really over with his wife.
If you have to ask, it isn’t.
He always answered yes, supposedly planning to move soon. He listed his wife’s flaws, surely to justify his infidelity.
I don’t know, seems to work. Those flaws got you paying for an apartment. Must save him a fortune on hotel costs.
And just when things were getting serious between us, he would change his tune, saying, “She’s nice, she’s a friend.” And suddenly, he found qualities in her that he couldn’t give up. I had opened my heart to him…
You got used.
But the funny thing is you expect ME — Lady of the Chumps — to care! Are you so blitheringly narcissistic as to think I have anything beyond hafuckityha? YOU KNEW. You were okay with his WIFE being used. You’ve been hoisted by your own petard. The leopards ate your face.
I regularly messaged him to ask how he was doing.
Yep. Still not special. Check back again later.
Nothing, no reply.
Am I supposed to share your horror that a lying liar who lies lied to you?
He gave me a bunch of reasons: my wife is kind, we don’t have any tension, I want to stay with my children, she might tell my whole family and my father would disown me.
Thank you. You’ve been a nice orifice. But now your services are no longer needed. Please exit the stage.
An ‘invisible bond.’
In one of my last messages, I told him I understood his avoidant attachment style and his behavior, and that I didn’t hold it against him, that we would surely maintain a strong, invisible bond between us.
You didn’t hold it against him except in that tell-his-wife kinda way. Heck, he couldn’t even agree that you had a special invisible bond!
And now, he’s subtly coming back, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He’s observing me.
Of course he is. He wants to know if you’re going to report him to HR. Or his wife. But as long as you remain a lovesick moppet, he’s good.
He’s a cowardly and fearful man. He’ll never tell his wife.
He cherishes his comfort and routine. This whole affair has robbed me of my peace, and a year later, I still can’t move on. I think about it every day.
Yeah, you blew up your family (and probably workplace reputation) for a creepy coworker. KNOWINGLY. Perhaps you should get some therapy and work on your terrible life choices?
Confession time
His wife has questioned him several times about possible infidelity. He’s always denied it, always lied. I think it would be wise to warn this woman and confess to her.
Yes tell, even if you don’t have the purest of intentions. But do it honestly with your name and proof and offer to answer her questions. And then let go of the outcome. She might reconcile, but at least she won’t be in the dark. I’d probably also look for a different job or a transfer.
I don’t want revenge, but I want to tell her the truth because she suspected something, and he fed her a long lie. He’ll probably do it again.
YOU fed her a long lie. Look at your own culpability here. He is a FW, but you aided and abetted in that woman’s abuse. You’re confessing to her for what YOU did. Her husband is her problem.
He’s not the Big Baddie who led you down the road to perdition. You went happily tra-la-laing down the path and you’d be sharing an apartment today if he hadn’t dumped you. Yes, you probably are not his first or last workplace affair. But the wife needs to know so she can get STD tested and stop the theft of her reality and finances.
Your pain is entirely besides the point.
My pain will be acknowledged, and I will be freed from the burden of being the only one who knows, making the lie impossible and placing responsibility where it belongs.
YOU are responsible for your choices. Your pain is self-inflicted. Tell because it is the ethical thing to do, and don’t dress it up as some noble whistleblowing.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
No, you’re being gobsmackingly entitled. Really, you think a strange blogger in a distant land is going to wade into your fucktangle? Do I look like your chaos janitor?
But, you’re Chump Lady! You’ll help the chumps! There’s a chumped wife out there suffering unknowingly! Here’s some tasty bait! HELP!
YOU hurt her. YOU clean this up.
I am so afraid of the consequences for my current life (which I can’t seem to live to the fullest): my child, my partner (we’re trying to mend our relationship, it’s difficult), my job (we were colleagues).
Interesting that you condemned your affair partner as cowardly and fearful. Who “cherishes his comfort and routine.” You’re the same. I’m not surprised it’s difficult to mend your relationship. What kind of person wants to be Plan B the Consolation Prize?
You’re gutless.
Could you perhaps consider sending an email to this woman, saying that I confided in you about this and that I left it up to you to decide how to proceed with revealing the truth?
What makes you think I want your flaming bag of responsibility? As you’ve left it up to me to decide, I’ve decided to hand this decision back to you.
Tell because it’s the right thing to do. Accept the consequences because they are yours.
She opened her heart? What heart?
I also see that she lacks a brain, and courage.
If she had any of these she would not be in the situation SHE ENTERED INTO.
When she gets to Oz, I hope the wizard gives her a gold medal for projection.
I always appreciate a look into the disordered thinking of people who have affairs.
It reminds me that I lost nothing of value.
What I am most disturbed by is the harm done to the involved children.
😪
The mistress writes a long letter about herself and only spares a sentence for the wife, and even then it’s STILL all about her pain. Not a single comment about how she’s harmed this woman or the danger she’s in.
Nothing surprises me anymore but the narcissism of cheaters never fails to stop me in my tracks. It’s like listening to a lizard person.
As for the “no one is perfect” defense that is often spit at the betrayed by cheaters?
Perfection, impossible for any human, is not the standard. Accountability is.
And that’s missing here too.
You are my new shero.
Exactly. It’s a bait-and-switch tactic to avoid accountability.
It’s very telling that these people’s most common go-to defense is the unattainable grandiosity of perfection. All we are asking for is the bare minimum of common courtesy?
Well Gutless, as you can see, no one here will be very sympathetic with you, because you knew he was with someone and yet still you did it.
Worse than that, you chumped your partner too.
This is not a “I didn’t know he was married/with partner” and slept once with him, and then tried to confront this person: you sustained a one year long relationship with a person that was in a relationship and you cheated your partner too.
Sorry, but I don’t believe you. You want REVENGE, and get the least repercution possible asking for CL to give you a way to tell his chump wife, because you want him ruined, not because you care of the chump partner.
Do something different instead, tell your partner about the affair, and be honest. Give him the choice of pick you or dump you.
No hugs for you from me.
Oof. This was triggering. FW cheated with a coworker (his and mine, we were at the same job). She dumped him eventually, but to this day sees herself as an innocent victim. I don’t deny that my ex was manipulative and abusive, but it’s not like AP didn’t know he was married with a child. Our kids had play dates together, she came to my house many times. And, as I said, we were all coworkers.
“Look at your own culpability here. He is a FW, but you aided and abetted in that woman’s abuse. You’re confessing to her for what YOU did.” AP did “apologize” after their breakup, but she accepted zero responsiblity. It was an “if I hurt you, I apologize” and “I was operating under false pretenses much of the time”. He was MARRIED. What false pretenses can she claim? And had her little fairytale worked out, she would never have felt the need to apologize (however pathetically).
AP even offered to be a witness in my divorce trial (!?!) and help me get custody of my child (after spending several years aiding and abetting my FW with smearing my character and trying to paint me as a mentally ill unfit parent). After FW died, AP kept trying to contact me, acting like we suddenly had this common grief (both abused by him) and could be friends, so I really felt this line: “This does not make us united in sisterhood. You KNEW he was a cheater. The chumped wife is an innocent you conspired against.”
APs really are deluded and entitled.
Gutless hasn’t acted in the Chump’s best interests thus far …. so why would she start now? Doubtless she’ll do whatever serves her best, and look to avoid ownership of the resultant consequences while she’s at it.
“People” like this don’t qualify as people in my book.
LFTT
First of all.. just wow. The ignorance and entitlement of the woman are horrifying. She does not see herself as what she is, a cheating whore, only as a victim. She is a victim of her own unethical and cruel behaviour.
My Cheater’s OW wrote him a sadz letter, after he got rid of her, bemoaning the fact that he ruined her life. That she left her husband (lied to him about why, using all kinds of lame justifications), couldn’t eat or sleep, was waiting for psychiatric help and so on.
I communicated with the OW’s husband a couple of years after the fact to tell him the truth of what happened. Interestingly it was just at the point where the OW had contacted him (her husband) to get together for lunch, see if the old spark was there, and he wanted to see her again. They were not divorced, just separated.
The husband was not angry with me for telling him about the cheating pair. it had gone on behind both of our backs for about 4 years. He was disgusted to find out the truth and immediately made arrangements to divorce her. We still communicate from time to time. He was left in rather dire financial circumstances.
It is possible the the woman who wrote to CL never told her husband the truth about why she wanted to exit her marriage. She may just have spoken about her ‘unhappiness’ which in my mind is cheaterspeak for, ‘ i think i’ve found something better than you but i am not going to tell you the truth.’ If she were to write to the cheater’s wife, reveal herself, she would be risking her home life and job as CL said.
Its really all about her and no one else.
Kudos to you for telling that chump husband about the infidelity just as she was about to hoover him back into her clutches!
There are two kinds of woman ones that cheat and ones that don’t. I will never understand the former.This woman sounds like the Jumbotron chick, its not me, blah blah blah. Loved the Chumpladys response, right between the eyes. Don’t these people have lives outside the bedroom to deal with? Who has time for all this diddling anyway? It makes me scratch my head that women like Gutless always have a man, must be the readiness to hop in the sack with just about anything, There must be a greater goal than screwing up literally people’s lives, innocent people.
Gutless, why did you write that they had two young children? Doesn’t he still have them? Why did you write you had even managed to get an apartment for him/us? Wouldn’t you need an apartment for the kids too, if he was going to share custody with his ex? And what about your child? Had you actually moved into this apartment, or were you just using your marital assets to pay for a place to have sex and fantasies?
You also wrote, He always answered yes, supposedly planning to move soon. He listed his wife’s flaws, surely to justify his infidelity. And just when things were getting serious between us, he would change his tune
That sounds like YOU got the apartment BEFORE things got serious. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? It sounds like YOU were the one pushing this affair, then he rejected you. And you trivialize and dismiss his stated desire to maintain his marriage, children and other family relationships, as giving you “a bunch of reasons.”
Asking ChumpLady to both make the decision and inform the wife is unfair to ChumpLady–she’s not a message service for cheaters–and to all of the cheating husband’s other female coworkers. If you refuse to identify yourself, every one of them becomes suspect to the chump, unless the cheater outs you.
You wrote that you want the wife informed so that My pain will be acknowledged, and I will be freed from the burden of being the only one who knows, making the lie impossible and placing responsibility where it belongs.
Sounds like you want the cheater punished for hurting YOU, and that he will be blamed for the affair, although it appears you were not just willing but pushing your hardest to get him to leave his wife and kids. If this is the line you are feeding your own husband, no wonder you are having difficulties with him too.
If you had come clean to your own husband, you wouldn’t be the only one who knows.
Sounds like you’re too afraid to tell him yourself. Would you like ChumpLady to send your letter to your husband?
Good catch! I missed that telling tidbit. Yeah, stands to reason she lied about telling him.
Yes, CL would do better sending the letter to the OW’s husband, and suggesting he hang out here, where he could embrace the LACGAL life!
Oh, I wish CL would!
Why are affair partners always so dim-witted? Gutless, your lying manhoe sampled your wares and decided that you are not worth blowing up his life. He wants you to disappear and not speak to anyone ever about his fling. You were a willing fool, a handy orifice and he is not going to leave his kind wife for your paltry allures. It is too bad really: you suck and so does he so you are equally matched in terms of suckitude, like two rotten apples.
Don’t come here and try to act all virtuous in telling his wife. We all see it as the last gasp of a marked-down ho desperate to keep her sloppy seconds cheater. You are pissed because your super-special cootchie won second place at the fair. You are doing it for you: you know, the same way you behave in all other areas of your life. Run along now.
I’m blown away that she doesn’t mention her own child until the very last sentence. She mentions his kids, but not her own. God, it’s so awful. Imagine having a parent who thinks about her affair partner every. single. day. for a year after he dumped her.
My mother was like this. She on several occasions would obsess over her limerance object to the point of job loss. When I was younger I thought she was just embarrassing. As an adult with children I can now see very clearly how her pathological selfishness and prioritization of anyone or anything else made her a neglectful parent at best.
Her kid(s) will hopefully figure it out one day and their sane parent will be their for them when they realize it.
My grandmother was like this, too. On her deathbed, she confessed to a years-long affair with a married man. Well, “confessed” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, because she wasn’t truly confessing as she wasn’t remorseful at all, just made it all about herself and HER feelings, how wonderful the guy was until he screwed her over, blah blah blah.
I asked if she’d ever spared a thought for the wife and children she stabbed in the back, and she just stared at me, blinking like an owl. No higher thought process. She literally couldn’t fathom other people’s feelings and got upset when I said I was disappointed in her.
Cheaters are truly a different breed, and they don’t change.
You’re walking proof that people have a choice to overcome lousy role modeling and still end up sane, solid and with integrity. But kudos to you because it can’t have been easy. I’ve known too many people who couldn’t manage to overcome similar things.
Hell of a Chump,
Thank you for the kind words I appreciate it. Maybe because it’s the holidays which is supposed to be a time for family but I’ve been struggling with how being raised in dysfunction then doing my best not to repeat the same levels of depravity of my family is the right thing to do. It still feels awful.
My dad made this sacrifice as well for my sake– cut ties with his toxic family and vowed that the generational cycle was over. He always seemed a little haunted around the holidays but loved Christmas so made the best of it he could. As an adult I would remind him frequently that he was way ahead of his time in the ways he protected his kids and marriage.
The good news is this letter reeks of ChatGPT fakery. Gutless can’t remember if she has a “child” or “children”; she claims the affair (and their shared job connected) ended a year ago yet this man is in some manner still ‘watching’ her; she’s in a civil partnership but also has a husband; oh, and her odd word choice is due to using translation software yet somehow she busts out with very ‘technical’ English phrases like avoidant attachment style.
The bad news is there are far too many real-life Schmoopies who do think this way. “Now that I lost the pick me dance I found my conscience!”
I hope you’re right, and this isn’t for real!
I was thinking the exact same thing. Google translate is good up to a certain point but isn’t perfect, especially if there are any technical terms or complicated sentence structures.
The “watching” part was very telling. Way to project and deflect her own stalker tendencies.
She is worried about being forgotten like yesterday’s trash and wants to drop a pseudo altruistic “nuclear truth bomb” to regain centrality.
Plus get revenge of FW for the “avoidant attachment” that she delusionally claims caused him to not want to leave his wife for her, a condition she is so very understanding about. “You poor dear man. I’m dropping your wife a line just to show how much I want to help.”
Barf.
Gutless, you are swan diving into Bunny Boiler territory because your rose colored fantasy of a workplace affair and the reality of the real harm you caused because you couldn’t keep it in your pants in a professional setting is some serious mental gymnastics that only Fuckwits tend to compete and win medals in.
You got an apartment for you and your limerance object before he was even separated?!?! That is an insanely stupid thing to do from just a logical and moral perspective. Consider it an expensive learning experience at best.
Your sad sausage timid forest creature request reminds me a lot of the bunny boiler who popped up 5 years ago because she just wanted to do the right thing; After she helped EXFW literally commit identity fraud on a minor child he hadn’t seen in just as much time, the absolute nut job of a woman who paid his retainer to get full custody of a kid EXFW abandoned years ago then tried to get him to sign off parental rights so he could get out of child support so they could start a family. The same psycho befriended my family of origin and did FBI-level surveillance about my kid and me, including attempting to get access to my kid’s medical records. My Domestic Violence/ Sexual Assault/ Child Abuse police reports/ court orders/ medical records against EXFW before I even knew she existed. The same deranged stalker that to this day still harasses us across state lines years after her and EXFW broke up… Not a single person in my FOO or hell even EXFW via legal counsel that a known crazy person who was obsessed with me and my kid. That is a mindfuck of betrayal that only chumps seem to fully understand.
How many people knew about it besides you and him? Cheaters tend to get sloppy and coworkers love to gossip. How many people knew, surely your friends know or even your own personal chump you are trying to reconcile with must know??? The landlord of your new apartment, your parents, your siblings, your HR rep, etc… Cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
You come across as vindictive and manipulative. If you wanted to do the right thing for your affair partner’s wife, you should never have started the affair to begin with. His wedding vows and his intact family should have mattered more to him than feeding your Venus flytrap. I don’t trust your sudden intentions of coming clean after realizing you’ve been dumped. You would be telling out of spite.
Since you are in the middle of the reconciliation industrial complex, I suggest you show this post to your couples therapist and ask what to do. Maybe your chump will tell FW’s wife for you and they can both get connected the chump nation when there world is shattered…
MovingOn, you described a level of terrorizing that goes beyond what most chumps experience. I suggest you look up Donna Anderson of lovefraud who writes about dealing with true psychopaths, and has recorded seminars with experts detailing how to protect yourself, what to say to law enforcement so they recognize this and respond appropriately, etc.
These people are so crazy that describing their actions makes their victims sound crazy.
I wouldn’t underestimate the possible escalation, even if she in no longer with EXFW. When their lives don’t go well, they sometimes circle back to take more of their anger out on prior victims.
I wish you well.
Good Friend thanks for helping to put it into perspective and the book recommendation I’ll check it out.
EXFWs Bunny Boiler popped back up about 2 months ago after maybe a two year period of silence.. Having to deal with it again and seeing my kid go from a well adjusted teen to a shell of person as a long-term consequence of EXFW really grinds my gears.
I feel like if our fearless leader did a textbook on Fuckwit Logic this would be a passage I would highlight and star a lot. This is one of those opportunities to look at how their thinking works under a microscope. These are almost laboratory conditions here, people! It’s like watching onion cells divide in biology lab!
They ARE monocellular life, after all.
Breaking it down:
-Gutless here knowingly and willfully participated in TWO affairs-one against her own family and one against our new nameless chump friend. We don’t hear about HER family-just that she got an apartment to get away from them.
-She was hoping against hope that Schmoopie would leave his spousal appliance. He didn’t.
-“It was OK that he lied to and alienated his wife, but it’s NOT OK that he did that to me!”
-“Hey, I don’t want to seem callow, but can you narc on my narc for me?”
-“I did something awful but I don’t want to feel bad about it.”
I feel like our fearless leader pulled the punch in giving her the name “Gutless.” “Completely Classless” would have been far more appropriate given all of that.
We can boil the whole thing down to “I’m special and special people should be treated better than the normals.” This apparently includes how they take accountability.
Seriously, this person (and I will use that term loosely here) not only emailed the proprietor of a website that at best is “hostile territory” to her kind but went through the trouble of going through Google Translate to do so. I’d say something was lost in translation, but honestly G-Trans handles idioms pretty well in my experience. We can cleanly add “expected somebody else to take the punt on her dipshittery.”
And this is all because Gutless here could not be arsed to fix her own “civil relationship” and instead thought she could pre-order some dick elsewhere.
Fuckwits, man. Fuckwits.
Have a Mighty Monday!
“Fuckwits, man. Fuckwits.”
Fuckwits– once we’ve gained some emotional and temporal distance from the trauma of knowing them– are sort of an endless source of f*cked up entertainment.
-“Hey, I don’t want to seem callow, but can you narc on my narc for me?”
Between that, onion cells and the rest, I can tell you are heading into another year of great snarking.
😄
Obviously, she used the term “civil partnership” so we’d think the cheating was somehow less heinous than if they had been formally married. Another term for it is common law MARRIAGE, but you won’t catch her using that one. So of course I referred to her chump as her husband, not her partner. I hope it pisses her off.
Using the term civil partnership in place of marriage might also be a nervous tic in cultures that distinguish between the two and value one over the other, some on religious grounds and some regarding a grade of marital rights. There are several countries like Turkey, Tunisia, the UAE, Spain, Singapore, Australia, UK, Netherlands and Germany that distinguish “religious marriage” from “legal partnership” that include discrepancies between partner’s legal rights.
Anyway, the point being that it might be a sort of social tic to distinguish between the two things in whatever culture the OP comes from depending on how much that culture values “religious marriage” above civil unions.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I argue with these people on the internet. People who either cannot, or more likely WILL not, understand that when FW’s do what FW’s do, there is a very big fucking difference between them doing it to someone who KNOWS they are a liar and helps them lie to their wife, and doing it to someone who trusts them, has had a family with them, and is utterly oblivious to the fact they’re sharing their life with a big fucking liar.
Why do they think they’re being equally screwed over by this person and that they are now equal victims alongside his wife?
I had a conversation with my 21yo daughter today who told me that her father’s wife (who was the AP at the end of our marriage) was cheated on by her first husband with her best friend. She and my ex told my daughter this story with a completely straight face and described in great detail how betrayed AP felt, and how grief stricken she was about losing contact with the first husband’s child when he left her.
She then proceeded to embark on a TWO YEAR LONG affair with my daughter’s dad.
They’re telling this story with a straight face to my daughter whose home and family the two of them trashed ten years ago – and expecting her to…what? Sympathise?
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT.
There’s a special place in hell for these people.
I couldn’t wrap my head around this kind of hypocrisy until I read Primo Levi’s “The Drowned and the Saved.”
I don’t equate the chump experience to surviving Nazi death camps but, all the same, the moral quandaries involved bear some resemblance to each other even if the scale doesn’t match. I recommend this book if you think understanding evil as an abstract concept might give your soul a bit of peace. It worked that way for me.
I think it’s the idea that you can only “beat” evil in the world by being evil yourself.
At the same time, getting empathy from others is kibbles. It’s like when my bullies claimed to have experienced something similar to the things they did to me and then everyone else empathized with them (while those same enablers always refused to empathize with me when I was getting victimized).
Playing martyr is how abusers earn the right to abuse.
I also noticed how bystanders are far more sympathetic with fake victims than they are with real ones, especially regarding sexual abuse scenarios.
False reports of sexual assault and harassment are vanishingly rare and I’d think they never happened at all if I hadn’t seen a few fakers up close. It really put my feminism to the test until I read about “toxic femininity” research and then it all made sense.
In all three situations, the women were serial mate poachers, interestingly enough. All knew how to play the crowd for sympathy. Meanwhile genuine victims were off ugly crying alone in bathroom stalls and were treated like lepers because, as it turns out, real victimization isn’t pretty and makes people uncomfortable. Also the real perpetrators of sexual abuse are typically powerful and scary to go up against while the fakers tend to choose more vulnerable, less scary targets to make false claims against. Also, the fakers are dangerous people and scary to cross in their own rights so bystanders’ support is, in a sense, a way of groveling for amnesty.
I think the industry I was in is more likely to attract psychopaths of every stripe which is probably why such a rare phenomenon as false sexual abuse claims seemed nearly common. But I think in less high stakes professions, one might never see this happen even once.
Yes, I can believe it. I hope your daughter understood right away that they were using her for more drama and sympathy. Did they need some excitement in their marriage? Or is this a precursor to guilting your daughter into being a replacement for the loss of Shmoopie’s ex’s child at some big upcoming event? (I guess that’s not her child??) I wonder if Schmoopie/wife wants to usurp your position and stand in, say, as mother of the engaged, mother of the graduate, or mother of the bride. Maybe the other child told Schmoopie/Wife in no uncertain terms to stay out of her/his life. Or it could be that the ten-year anniversary is key, and your ex and Schmoopie/Wifetress want to renew their vows or have some other big event, and want to make sure your daughter will stand up with them and play happy families. Could even have been to guilt her into playing happy families for the holiday image management.
When I discovered My now Ex’s online affair of two months and proved it was a catfisher using photos stolen from an Instagram hooker, he–after a marriage of more than 3 decades– demanded that I console him –with sex, of course–because he had lost the love of his life. He then contacted the Instagram hooker (they serve an international clientele) to console her for having her pictures used in this horrible way. And offered to help or meet up with her. Doubtless for more consolation.
And yes, he wanted our then tween to also console him. And to play happy families to impress future potential “loves.”
Batshit crazy yet totally believable here at CN.
One of the reasons I daydream for FW narcopath to have a heart attack is how he has, post divorce, continued to gaslight our children. Yes recurring episodes of Sad sausage performance with them, crying playing victim and seeking consolation from them. From two minor children whose lives he destroyed in favor of porn and hookers.
My blood is boiling just typing it out.
I can’t imagine how hard it would be to co-parent with a FW. What mine did during separation was so egregious that Child Protective Services and the court-ordered Parental Responsibilities Evaluator concluded he should have no contact ever, and that’s the court order.
I remember my ex telling me “whore is hurting too” He even said “whores dad wants the best for her” I just stared at him as if he had two heads. What he didn’t know then was my dad had already told me to get away from him as quick as I could. No, idiot; a father who cares wouldn’t think the best thing for his daughter is to hang on to a lying sack of crap. Unless her dad is a lying sack of crap himself.
I never cease to be amazed by their clueless entitlement and false sense of victimhood, even though I have observed people like this countless times.
This Schmoopie is so incredibly clueless that her account reads as a parody. Can *anyone* truly be *this* entitled and stooooopid?
I’ve dealt with several cheaters and unfortunately this level of stupidity and narcissism tracks.
A walking, talking self-parody.
We, the chumps of the world, NEED TO SEE and comprehend the unbelievable chutzpah that goes into chumping us by both the AP and the cheater. To UNDERSTAND that they are talking about you behind your back, in a most degrading manner and comparing notes. That your private conversations and every fault is being discussed. They you are putting you down and complaining about YOU… WHILE YOU ARE HAVING SEX with them, cooking cleaning, working extra, making babies FOR THEM..There is absolutely no “WORST FRIEND” you could have in the entire world. There is zero forgiveness for this betrayer and ongoing betrayal..it is like JUST WALK AWAY.Thank you Tracy for showing unsure chumps what they are really worth to their cheater. We are just OF USE.
That is the worst part. For years for many of us, while we were fully engaged in the marriage; the FW was betraying us at every turn. And then when the house of cards fall they attempt to blame us for their sins/perfidy. Not unlike the employee that embezzles from his/her employee or clients, except no one tries to make excuses for embezzlement crime.
Susie Lee ..what i heard…but YOU MADE ME DO THIS TO YOU, you needed a lesson in meeting my needs! If you were so awful I would not have had sex at work, or in the massage places..YOU. DROVE ME there
If this letter is real and chosen so women could have an OW as a target to attack … mission accomplished.
We don’t know OW’s original words or tone as Google Translate took over. In short the question is the age old question – do women want to know if the their partner is cheating. Answer? Some want to know and some do not. Judging by this guy’s past, if anyone tells this wife, he will crucify and sacrifice OW so he comes out without a scratch.
If OW is turning to chumplady then she most likely doesn’t have her own friends to talk to this about. FW will have her in a cone of silence and that’s where he keeps his power. Most people are too chicken to tell the wives the truth about their hubbies. They pay the price. Kill the messenger. So the wife is last to know. If the messenger is OW, then it blows up more – how dare she speak up and ruin his life?
My advice to OW is read books on recovering from emotionally controlling relationships. Yes you have been used and the only way to stop your pattern is to learn about narcissistic traits and tendencies. The clinical level. Try a therapist. Even Chapgpt. You were chosen by FW because you have your family to lose if you rock the boat. Careful in these waters. Protect your children. (You can’t go back in time and not have the affair.) Open up your eyes for the now
Tell Her, this woman is highly narcissistic herself. Therapy won’t do jack for her. She was indeed used but she also is a user and an abuser herself, not a helpless victim.
As for whether chumps want to know or not, yeah, some don’t, but the point is that we should all have the opportunity to know what is happening in our own lives. How we react to that knowledge may vary, but the principle about our right to that knowledge is inviolable.
Gutless, like a typical selfish, disordered, narcissistic affair partner, you want to tell his wife, not in order to help her, but in order to (and you admit this) relieve *yourself* of the sole burden of this knowledge and because the FW lied to you, stringing you along about leaving his wife. So you obviously want revenge. I would say stop lying about that, but since lying seems to be a way of life for you, I’m not going to waste my time.
Nobody here is going to feel sorry for you about the problems you created for yourself. You helped to create a far greater problem for another woman (not to mention her children) and were perfectly fine with participating in violating her consent and attempting to break up a family until you realized he had no real intention of leaving her. So then you decided to confess to your husband and try to make it work with him, because you would never really have the FW. Unfortunately, your idea of making it work is lying to your husband that you’re all in on repairing the damage when you clearly still want the other man and will probably cheat again with the next guy who flatters you. You, Gutless, are contemptible. So how about you put that through Google translate and suck on it instead of sucking on married penis.
By the way, he doesn’t have “avoidant attachment,” he was just playing you the whole time. He was cake eating and having a grand time doing so. How pathetically stupid can a person be.
Be that as it may, it doesn’t matter what noxious reasons you have for telling, because telling is the right decision. You can still remain gutless and send her a message anonymously, but you won’t ever be right with yourself unless you confess and apologize personally. That being said, I don’t think you are ever going to do the things that will make you right with yourself. You are most comfortable lying and being selfish and cowardly, to the ridiculous extreme that you would ask a woman who champions the victims of infidelity to help facilitate your cowardice. Did you actually think she would? Like all FWs, you are unfamiliar with the reality of life on this planet. If only there was another planet for your kind to pollute and leave the rest of us alone. There isn’t one for real, but naturally you can continue to go to one in your mind. It’s called Planet Narc, and on that planet you are Queen of Desire, the one who captures hearts and souls, not just a grubby, delusional little adulterer. Have fun over there but please don’t send Chump Lady any more postcards, especially during the holidays. The poor UBT’s tummy is already weakened from scarfing holiday treats, so he can’t take the added nausea factor.
Kisses!
Your new pal,
Oh For Fuck’s Sake
Virtually all cheaters are serial cheaters and most will overlap affairs or at least try to which means the real delulu figures in affair fucktangles aren’t the ignorant chumps but the knowing affair partners who believe they’re the only or at least “final” side pieces.
I could never understand why this isn’t obvious to everyone. As a young turnip interning in a competitive industry that was packed with narcs, pervs and super-rich nepo babies, it was an open secret that every married douchebag who hit on me and my my fellow underlings had gone through a never-ending lineup of side dishes throughout all their (usually back-to-back) marriages.
Because it seems that affairs with women who are merely out for money or career enhancement, not husbands and happily ever after, tend to be the most expensive and risky (hell actually has no fury like a side piece who didn’t get the promotion she was promised), experienced cheaters who are looking to save a bit of money and bother will go after the more emotionally desperate targets and use the bait that their “wives dOn’T uNderStAnD” them in order to future fake the target into thinking there’s hope for happily ever after. Then every time the affair partners get uppity, cheaters can reboot the future faking by complaining about their wives.
I always thought it was particularly ironic that anyone in the media industry would fall for this approach since those who study media marketing history will learn that companies selling the most dangerous products have the most demeaning views of their own consumers. For instance, market analysts for Big Tobacco infamously stereotyped smokers as mentally unstable and lacking hygiene.
By the same token, putting down wives to lure in side piece is a crass hubris trap that comes from the misogynist assumption that all women are blindly, cattily competitive with other women. My reaction to this approach was to be insulted by it and also to let the air out of the seduction attempt by defending wives and partners. But in the case of the emotionally desperate brand of side pieces, this insulting assumption is typically quite true and these women seem heavily motivated by “winning” at other women’s expense and therefore very easy (and relatively cheap) to string along.
But alas, to serial predators, easy soon becomes boring so, at the point where they’re ready to retire an AP to free up time and resources for shiny new bangmaids, they’ll simply say they’re “reconciling” with their wives whether it’s true or not.
Everyone working in that industry and other high stakes professions will be bystanders to this clown circus many times. Because I was raised by feminist parents, at first I would try to warn other women about resident douchebags or sympathize with dumped side dishes (because no one cries and whines louder) but quickly learned that the types of women willing to mess with married men on any pretext (including the usual bs about how these men are victimized by evil ogre spouses and looking for twu wuv), are never friends to other women and would simply shoot the messengers (often by reporting whatever you said about the cheater to the cheater themselves in the hopes that playing informant would get them back into cheaters’ good graces).
Because of these typical shenanigans (and it’s more typical for men to be serial cheaters than women and sadly more typical for whining mate poachers to be female), in the end my sympathies were only with chumped primary partners. I might have split the difference more but for the fact that every side piece I ever encountered tended to stab all other women in the back, not just the partners of the men they serviced. Furthermore, I noticed how women like this also tended to be awful to men who weren’t knuckle-dragging goons as if, in their estimation, the only “real men” are those who abuse and exploit.
I think that’s sad as hell. Anyway, in my experience, most side pieces were classic traitors, aka, “Vichy women” as CL dubs them. So, as a feminist, I recognize that witting side pieces are also victims of patriarchy but sort of in the more ironic way that the prison informants that Russian historian Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about in Gulag Archipelago were arguably victims of Soviet repression along with the fellow prisoners they ratted out and threw under the bus. Yet Solzhenitsyn admits to having a sense of justice and relief when a group of highly organized Ukrainian political prisoners began taking out all the informants and thus improving conditions in the gulag for the remaining captives. Solzhenitsyn admits that he’s not particularly proud of this sentiment, yet his sympathy for traitors was less than for the prisoners who refused to act as informants against others.
Surviving the Harvey Weinstein-ish hell of that industry left me with a simularly abridged humanitarian sympathy. I tend to see the types who prohibit any criticism of “side chicks” as “slut shaming” as either sheltered tourists or corrupt in their own rights.
Interestingly, FW narcopath first OW was one of those women who only had male friends types. She cheated on her own BF with my then husband FW, also cried victim alleging childhood abuse BS. Several she-FW I know in real life also have no or few long term female friendships.
How sad for me and my kids, that I didn’t see this sooner in my own life. FW also hardly had any long term true same gender friendships in spite of all of the years I spent trying to help him! Turns out he was giving odd standoffish vibes to the husbands of our couples friends.
So there’s a weird male version of the Vichy women you describe.
https://www.academia.edu/16623685/Sexual_Coercion_in_Men_and_Women_Similar_Behaviors_Different_Predictors?email_work_card=thumbnail
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305279925_Evil_women_and_Hyperfemininity_Hyper-gender_role_and_sexual_offending_by_women
Here’s my advice to you, Gutless-fully disclose to your own husband first and do your best to support him right now. Then confess to the other woman and answer her questions. Then get yourself some help because you’re gonna need it. That man is not going to come back to you, even if his wife kicks him out. Your husband may or may not take you back but it doesn’t sound like you want to be married to him anyway, so be honest with him and yourself. Look for another job immediately. Make a plan to look after your child.
I repeat- this man is not coming back to you, so stop with that fantasy and do the right thing for the people you’ve hurt.
Just wanted to add that the most stunningly narcissistic thing Gutless said is that when she tells the chump, her own pain will be acknowledged. She actually thinks the chump is going to feel sorry for her. She expects the chump to validate her sense of victimization.
This kind of bizarre, clueless vapidity is why I go by the name OHFFS. It never stops being a headshaker.
It is horrifying she does not even mention the trauma and pain she caused her own child, her own partner. Only HER anguish counts!
So this is the way our collective FW saw us and all our children, subhuman and not worth any consideration because WAH WAH WAH poor cheater is the victim.
A terrifying look into the Narcissistic personality disordered FW’s soul-less void.
These Other Women really are delusional & brazen as cheap perfume. Own up to your mess that you created, “lady”. Beg for forgiveness from all those you harmed. Atone for your failings. Become a better person. If you can’t do that, you’re just another piece of shit human taking up air space. Fuck off with your pity party.
The gall! Yes, I know I shouldn’t be surprised.
I thought I was the only person who used “gobsmacked”!
This woman is just as big an idiot as I imagine most Affair Accomplices are. “Poor me! I didn’t get what I wanted so now I want to hurt him by hurting the wife he was hurting!”
Insincere trash.
Thanks CL for sharing this letter with us. I think its good for Chumps to be reminded of how just vapid and entitled these AP are. We do ask ourselves, what were the AP thinking when they entered into an affair with an unavailable person. Now we know the answer, not much! They have no thoughts about their jobs, kids, spouses, or ruining AP spouse and kids lives. We chumps think of equivalencies. But cheaters and their side pieces are just not normal people. Heres the proof!
This is a great post and response for everyone imagining that the OW is somehow “better” in terms of looks, age, wealth, personality, or some other metric. This is the twisted, entitled and ugly thinking of a woman who cares for nothing but herself and her passionate relationship. She just got involved with a guy who is more disordered, entitled and ugly than she is.
Behold, the soulless and gutless affair partner.