Other Woman Invites First Wife to Her Wedding
The Other Woman is marrying her affair partner and invites the chump wife to the wedding. Apparently, this is some sort of enlightened gesture.
***
Dear Chump Lady,
Hi! Long time follower of the blog. The other day I was reading a Reddit post looking for advice. The poster had been divorced and no contact from their cheater ex for two years.
She received a “care package” from the Other Woman, with a wedding invitation.
The package contained a candle with the words “Letting Go” on it, “healing crystals” and a saccharine letter telling OP that even though the relationship started out “rough” (with this woman cheating with OP’s now ex) she believes everything happens for a reason. And it would be such a beautiful symbol of OP letting go and healing if she came to the wedding!
OP was considering sending it back with a glitter bomb.
It got me thinking, the blog has definitely mentioned how annoying it is when friends and family tell chumps they need to forgive. “For the kids!” “For yourself!” “For god!” And how cheaters like to forgive themselves, and expect the chump to just let it go already! They said soooorrryyy!!
What about when Schmoopies decide it’s time for the chump to move on, and how they should do so?
Oh she should let go and heal now. The candle I sent her will cleanse her of that bitterness. It really is time for him to let go and let God. It would be so beautiful for him to babysit our affair baby like it’s his own!
Cheaters and schmoopies sure do like to decide when everyone else should be healed from it all. There is a particularly sour poison when the Schmoopie makes the call on when a chump should be healed and suggests something wildly inappropriate (like coming to the wedding of two cheaters) like it’s a beautiful symbol of harmony.
Schmoopie can choke on glitter.
K
***
Dear K,
No glitter bombs. Remember, if it feels good, don’t do it. As much as the OP or you might imagine the hilarious justice of Ms. Live-Laugh-Love covered in adhesive sparkles, you must resist the urge. The best thing in this situation is complete silence.
Deny the Other Woman the centrality she so desperately craves.
The OP did exactly the right thing here — instead of rewarding the OW with attention, she anonymously posted the whole mess for public ridicule. The person who needs validation here is the chump. OP’s not bitter, or unsophisticated. No, she’s trying to move on and this stupid bully won’t let her.
Just because the bully dresses up her bullying as “forgiveness” doesn’t make it any less insulting.
The package contained a candle with the words “Letting Go” on it, “healing crystals” and a saccharine letter telling OP that even though the relationship started out “rough” (with this woman cheating with OP’s now ex) she believes everything happens for a reason.
The Other Woman imagines that the chump still gives a fuck about the pick me dance. Letting go assumes someone is still holding on. And OW needs that fantasy of a Bitter Chump Who Cannot Move On to feel like she won a prize. Probably helps with the cognitive dissonance of marrying a cheater. (Or as I call them, “the monogamy challenged.”)
Let’s examine why the Other Woman’s wedding invitation and care package are offensive.
- OW is minimizing the harm she did.
- The invitation is impression management.
- The chump’s healing or lack thereof is none of her business.
And it would be such a beautiful symbol of OP letting go and healing if she came to the wedding!
Ooh. Is there going to be a balloon launch? Will OW release a cage of doves? How could we possibly miss the premier forgiveness event of the summer?
The Other Woman is minimizing.
She’s rewritten the script. Instead of a patriarchal nitwit who conspired in the abuse of another woman, now she’s a shaman healer. Did she fuck your husband? Hey, nothing a hunk of quartz won’t fix.
It takes a staggering lack of personal awareness to think that the person you harmed wants your unsolicited gifts or life advice. The OW can stick her voodoo candle where the sun doesn’t shine.
The Other Woman’s wedding invitation is pure impression management.
You know what would really remove the stench of OW’s bad choices? Your personal endorsement of her happiness. Hey, she bought you a $10 candle. I think you should attend this blessed event.
Honestly, what goes on inside their heads? To narcissistic FWs chumps are just people to use. And they could both use chump attendance to project NO ONE WAS HARMED HERE. Does OW really care about you? Of course not. But you could help how other people perceive her. So let’s be friends!
The chump’s healing or lack thereof is none of her business.
What’s particularly galling about an affair partner telling you to move on is, you might not yet have moved on. It takes a long time to heal from this crap and achieve meh. And nothing sets you back like contact from someone you wish would fall backasswards into a vat of acid.
See, that sentence wasn’t very meh. If affair partners truly wanted chumps to think more kindly of them they would respect no contact. It’s much easier to call on one’s better angels without harassment.
Cheaters and Schmoopies sure do like to decide when everyone else should be healed from it all.
Yes, because it’s not about healing, it’s about control. Controlling the chump, controlling their image, controlling the message.
If anyone needs a “Let Go” candle here, it’s the cheaters.
Sounds to me like Schmoopie needs some kibble!! If the OP has been no contact for two years, that shows her sentiments. It is about moving on. The OP is not in contact with this pair of FWs but the FWs want to display a butter bunny at the wedding.
No answer and continuing no contact is the best answer. Let them die from kibble deprivation!! I still find it difficult to believe how much these FWs crave attention! I am lucky that after being ignored for the past almost three years, my exFW has given up his attempts at centrality.
You know what I bet? I bet the FW compares her to the first wife constantly and it drives her insane. I bet that’s the whole purpose of the OW poking her now. If she came to the wedding and caused a scene, it would tarnish the image of perfection that the FW is holding over her head.
I usually don’t jump to “they’re jealous” because I think it’s often not true and people overuse it to make themselves feel better. But when my son lived with my FW and his OW for awhile, he started making comparisons. It really surprised me. He would tell me, she doesn’t cook like you always did and she’s not clean at all, and she’s not smart, etc. Now he was a young adult, not a young child. But he’s also a mildly autistic, not all that observant young adult and it seemed out of character for him to notice stuff like that… unless his dad was flat out saying it. He even brought up her weight at one point and said how she had “let herself go” and I was in much better shape than her and I was like that is his dad saying that. I gained 50 pounds at one point during my marriage and my teenage son (at that time) did not even notice and was shocked when I told him that’s why I was dieting.
He also told me that she’s very dramatic and cries all the time. So while my ex didn’t appreciate any of the many things I did for him, I’m pretty sure he was holding all of it over her head to terrorize her. I think they do this most of the time. It’s the norm. They keep the competition going to get the performance they want out of the OW, even long after we’ve left the arena.
I suspect you’re right! 😁😈
They really are unbelievable, these creatures. The fuckwit she’s marrying lied in his teeth to his wife, and the moronic bitch thinks it’s going to be different for her? Hahaha! She fucked a married man, and she thinks there isn’t an OW in *her* future? She’s obviously a grade A moron, if she thinks the OP is going to bother with her little fantasy. Re attempts at centrality, FW tried hoovering a couple of years ago, was ignored, and I thought even he would realise he was wasting his time, but no, the fucker tried again 2 weeks ago. And we’ve been divorced since 2019. 🙄
“She fucked a married man, and she thinks there isn’t an OW in *her* future?”
I have often wondered if my FW and his AP didn’t break up and instead got married if maybe she would “luck out” never find herself in my shoes? My logic at that time was that we were togeher for decades before this happened, and by the time THEY were together decades, he’d be in his 70s and perhaps too tired to keep up all this fuckery.
But in hindsight, nah, he will be up for fuckery until the day he dies. Also, I didn’t find out he was a cheater until we were together decades, but she likely wasn’t the first one. So the AP may have caught on quicker than I did.
Oh yes, my ex FW sent his holiday tidings every year at Christmas. This consisted of him telling me how horrible I was!!!🤣 I had friends over we drank wine and had snacks while we did a mock UBT session on his letter. Pure projection.
He got no reaction from me ever! I am sure it drove him insane(r). They are all very much alike.
I did my share of buttering and pick me dancing. No one will ever get that from me again.
Was “butter bunny” a typo for bitter bunny, or have you deliberately coined a new and effective term for a chump who still spackles and supports the false narrative?
Daggone typo!!
I really like ‘butter bunny’ though! GoodFriend gives an excellent definition, maybe Tracy can add it to the vocab list? 😀
Perhaps there is an idea in there for a Friday challenge?
Seconded! I pictured a Chump with a butter knife, spackling the cracks and dings while humming a jaunty tune. Haven’t we all been butter bunnies in the past?
Once again the amazing CL has outdone herself with crystal clear insight into the true motivations of messed-up cheaters.
Most powerful for me in today’s post is this: “Just because the bully dresses up her bullying as “forgiveness” doesn’t make it any less insulting.”
I realized before Dday #1 – but 2+ decades into my long-term marriage – that my now ex is a bully. A well-disguised one, or so I and many others thought. (A few saw it long before I did.)
Forgiveness and moving on must have sole agency resting with the chump, and completely in the chump’s timeline. For me, forgiving myself for missing what I missed and living a rich new life is central, NOT my ex and his soon-to-be new wife.
*le gasp* My letter! (With me forgetting to put my name in the email…wewps…)
The absolute staggering levels of conceit and egotism it must take to tell the woman whose husband you fucked “everything happens for a reason” in your wedding invitation to them must be mountainous.
“Everything happens for a reason! The reason I fucked your husband was because he was meant to be with me instead! You got cheated on because your husband was meant to be with someone else.”
She should be careful not to slip a disc in her c-spine with her navel gazing.
Last I checked the Reddit thread, OP is refraining from glitter bombing the OW and decided to just keep ignoring the two idiots.
There was a female standup who used to say that, whenever she heard people saying “Everything happens for a reason,” what she heard instead was “Anything can happen with a razor.”
I always found that hilarious because, in my experience, the only people who spout this nonsense are either people who momentarily landed on top of the heap and are trying desperately to convince themselves their good luck is ordained and permanent or else those who are the reason bad things happen to others.
😂😆😂. I love that. Also more true than that stupid shit. Children are raped/murdered for a reason? People get cancer for a reason? Your house is burned down for a reason? Utterly idiotic.
I remember a then-23 year old British film star saying this in an interview. Like “The reason I’m a millionaire at 23 is because God loves me more!”
Funny how, after two divorces and a major career downturn, she doesn’t say things like this anymore. Reality can be humanizing but I think the really lucky people are the ones who adopt realism earlier in life without the educational kick in the pants.
“Everything happens for a reason!” He left you because I am better than you! Better than you – do you hear me I said I AM BETTER THAN YOUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!
Good. The OW is clearly desperate for some triangulation. I hope the cunt gets crabs and a fears ome crotch itch on her ‘wedding day’.😈😁
Good. This trash OW is really desperate for a response that will help her image management.
Sounds like cheater and schmoopie are either still getting or perceiving some criticism over their cheating, and want to use the chump to put a stamp of approval on their twu wuv to shut down any fault-finders. Or maybe their false narrative has been that the marriage ended before the affair began, and they want the chump’s presence to “prove” there was no cheating or hard feelings.
Interesting these “gifts” and invitation came solely from Schmoopie, and not the cheating ex.
Schmoopie likely knows that the ex-wife who was cheated on will not want to attend.
It’s possible schmoopie just wanted to hurt the ex-wife by rubbing the upcoming marriage in her face, under the pretense of “caring” about her feelings.
What’s extra crappy and manipulative is knowing the ex will get the package, open it and see what appear to be innocuous gifts, then open and read the letter. My guess is that schmoopie did not put her name on the outside of the package, and wanted to ambush the ex-wife by raising her spirits with the gifts before dashing them with the letter.
Although I know the ex should just ignore the whole thing, I laughed at the idea of Scmoopie getting a glitter bomb, especially right before the wedding. Do they make glitter that looks like tiny turds? Since she didn’t mention any kids, I think it would be delightful if the ex-wife borrowed some for the event and gave schmoopie a gift by showing up at the wedding with a crying baby and a couple of rambunctious, hungry, sugared-up children. With chocolate on their hands and an interest in checking out the wedding dress.
The old Katie would like to find some roadkill and wrap it up really beautifully in a box and send it anonymously to the wedding. But I’m Christian and live in the city now and try not to indulge in the less savory aspects of my backwoods hillbilly upbringing. But they would deserve it and I would laugh uproariously if somebody else did it.
Oh I’d so indulge in the hillbilly ROFLMAO.
There is indeed, brown poop shaped glitter readily available online from multiple sources, including poop faces.
I’d bet if one of your guesses isn’t totally correct, you’re still in the ballpark.
My guess is ex is getting heat about this from friends or family and they think if OP shows up to the wedding they can point to it and say “See! It’s ok! She’s given her blessing!”
I find that hate requires too much energy and my religion discourages it thus, I choose to not devote the energy needed to maintain hate for the short list of people who have deeply wronged me.
I do, however choose to maintain what I term “Chronic Low-Level Distain” and I plan to keep it up forever.
It has been 20 years since Susan of Seattle f’ed my husband and if she suddenly sat next to me on an airplane, my stomach would flip, my blood pressure would elevate, and I would shift in my seat uncomfortably as I decided what to say. There would be no “good vibes” nor girly chat about…well, anything.
Im in the corner with the folks who dont want to be told if or when to forgive.
It’s funny, thoughts of the AP do still raise my blood pressure at times. She has a blog, I occasionally read it. It’s very “love and light” and at one point she spoke highly about fidelity which all seems rather rich comingfrom a woman that knowingly got involved with a man with young kids.
She doesn’t live near me, it was a long distance affair. But at the time, the plan was for her to move here to be with him, and I was aghast at the thought of running into her in my daily life. I think if I saw her in the grocery store, I’d abandon my cart and run. Not proud, just honest.
They didn’t last. She never moved here.
But now? Let’s say they got back together and she did move here? If I saw her in the store I honestly think I would laugh until I risked peeing myself. Honestly, I really think that would be my response. Not to run. Not to tell her off. Not to be “the bigger person” and “maturely” greet her. I think I would laugh my ass off. I am not even sure what is so funny about it, other than I just think of her (and him) as such a couple of foolish morons.
Lest you think I am super-evolved, admittedly, if I ran into him with a random new, non-AP girlfriend? I think I would run. Sooo..make of that what you will.
I feel this. I remember my own sister saying to me, “you can’t just be mad him forever.” and rolling her eyes at me. Excuse the f*ck out of me? I don’t ever have to be friends with him again. Why would I be? He was as cruel as possible to me and then I found out he seemed to be interested sexually in children. I’ve been very open my whole life about how those people should be publicly ex*cut*d. I literally caused problems in my family with my mom as a teen by refusing to accept the presence of her ped0 brother. It’s not new for me. I’m not the person who lied and hid who I was but I’m supposed to feel bad for staying consistent to my morals? Like no, I don’t think so.
“you can’t just be mad him forever.”
Sure you can! Easily.
Look, it is probably not good for your own health to walk around consistently enraged about him daily for the rest of your life. But that doesn’t mean you ever have to forgive him or feel even remotely ok about him. There is a much more livable level of quiet, back of the mind hatred that you can deal in instead.
And that goes for just the cheating.
The pedo part? There are strangers that will never forgive a pedo they jsut see a newstory on. Nor should they. Nevermind if he is your ex.
Your mention of if you suddenly sat next to Susan on a plane how you would feel made me think the times I see a sporty blond woman in a baseball hat. I panic it’s my cheater’s schmoopie. I have come to have a mild disdain for sporty blondes. I try not to compare myself to her. I rationally know it’s stupid to. I remind myself throughout our marriage he would tell me he was more attracted to sporty girl-next-door types and I’m not sporty. There were so many things he would say that I would question him why he was with me and why he loved me if he liked people who were different but he said he loved me everyday. I see now it was all impression management and control of supply.
As much as Susan of Seattle would make my stomach flip, the fact that she is Chinese made me have an intense response to anything Chinese for a while ( more than a year). I couldn’t even look in the direction of a Chinese restaurant for a while.
I tell you this to share that my reaction to a broad trigger did dissipate and general Chinese things dont bother me anymore. My son is in a long term relationship with an ancestrally Chinese person and it doesnt bother me at all. Im at 100% Meh.
Im hoping that your brain will find peace and you can look at some random sporty blond with a ponytail emerging from her ball cap and not flinch. FWIW, we had a sporty blond gal as our real estate agent on a house purchase and I now wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I learned that he boinked her.
Twatface had this absolute paranoia about people talking about him (I told him he wasn’t that interesting) so one day he asked me meet him and Schmoopie in town to have lunch together “very publicly” to show that I was okay with everything that had gone down. I laughed in his face and hung up!
Good for you!
I get the right thing would be to stay NC but dang I couldn’t do it. I’d be writing “already have” in red Sharpie on that candle, wrapping a “hun, you’re going to need this in a few years” tag around the crystal, in same red sharpie RSVPing NO THANKS and returning the box to FW at work (because chances are he doesn’t know about the care package that went along with the invitation). Although in my case instead of a gown, schmoopie would be wearing a tux.
Image management, and nothing more. OW imagines they’ll look less like the pieces of shit they are if chump attends with a smile.
All this tells me is that OW knows that people still think they’re pieces of shit. I would absolutely ignore this.
“All this tells me is that OW knows that people still think they’re pieces of shit.”
Brilliant. Yes, that is exactly it. Schmoops is planning her wedding and everything is perfect except that nagging feeling that everyone is silently judging her for being an AP. And yeah, if only the Chump would come, then that worry would go out the door. Think about it, they will presumably read vows, all while she realizes he read vows to his firsat wife too and didn’t stick to them.
I hope the OP revels in the fact that she isn’t giving them the statisfaction.
Well this is timely! My ex’s schmoopie is actually a man, not a woman, and knowing my ex as I do, the last thing he wants is a long term monogamous committed relationship — I guess he felt having a female spouse gave him respectability and also an excuse not to have to pledge monogamy. But I digress.
So my 29-year-old daughter now tells me that AP wants to do a big blowout gatsby-level birthday party for fuckwit, who will turn 70 this September. And he’s been putting the pressure on my daughter to help locate all FW’s old friends (none of whom actually know he’s gay … this should be amusing). This is so my ex could have the kind of birthday party I threw for him on his 60th birthday (actually, I had to do two: one in New York and the other in Los Angeles, but again I digress).
And here’s the kicker: AP tells me that I should come to the party. Because apparently he’s been listening to FW bemoan all that was lost now for seven years, and he, AP, thinks it’s time I Got Over It.
I know all this because my daughter promptly copied the entire text and sent it to me.
This was a very, very serious and difficult choice for me to make, but I had longstanding plans to re-arrange my sock drawer that day and with a heavy heart had to talk everyone down off this absolutely brilliant idea.
Yeah, this supports my theory! Your FW is even gay now, and the MAN he’s with is tired of constantly being compared to YOU for seven years! Can you even imagine that?! Seven years of him hearing his boyfriend whine and moan about how much he misses his wife and how great she was and how she threw him great parties. And now the 304 wants you to come to the birthday party to make it stop as if you owe him anything for sleeping with your husband.
Honestly, that’s absolutely hilarious. I love that they live in misery. Because if the little boyfriend was happy, he wouldn’t even think about bothering you. He’d just be living his life. You hold permanent real estate in that man’s mind while you’re just living your life. I’m glad you shared this, it feels like justice.
I’d send the invite back with the “Unable to Attend” box checked.
I wouldn’t do it – but you could put all the items into a nice, festive box as a wedding gift with one change. In an envelope addressed to them, have a friend write “When a man marries his mistress, a job opening is created. Good luck!” in calligraphy.
After all, she (or he) will be in your shoes within a few years.
I’m loving this. Fertilize that little seed of doubt in her head so she’ll step up playing marriage police. A hell of her own making and delicious revenge
I wouldn’t go to my ex-husband’s wedding even if he was marrying someone other than the OW, let alone the OW.
I would send the care package back with no comment. If you don’t have kids with your ex, then add a simple, “Please do not contact me again.”
“I wouldn’t go to my ex-husband’s wedding even if he was marrying someone other than the OW, let alone the OW.”
Honestly, it would be a rare ex that would. Even if say there was an ethical breakdown of our marriage, no cheating, and the two of us truly stayed amicable, I think it might feel just weird to be at an ex’s wedding. I am sure there are people that have done this. But I would feel a little funny about it. And I would feel like people might look at me wondering what I think. Nevermind if he was marrying his AP whom I dislike.
I wouldn’t even bother to send it back. The whore is obviously gasping for some response, how furious she’ll be if she gets *nothing*.
I suspect that the AP does not know that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. If I were in the OP’s shoes, I would maintain an assertive indifference to the entire clown show that the AP is proposing by not acknowledging it in any way whatsoever.
LFTT
I had a related recent experience with the unsolicited “move on get over it” advice.
I let a week or so pass before I responded. It’s from someone WHO WORKS FOR ME (!!!!) so I needed to say something. Evidently Traitor Ex has been sharing personal information about me, the (so-called) marriage, and the divorce with employees for who knows how long (!!!)
This man loves his house. It helped that a week or so earlier he had a run in with a neighbor who aggressively and unjustly accused him of being responsible for water runoff. My employee went to great lengths to prove his innocence. He did some investigating, got up early and took videos of another neighbor’s sprinklers, which were broken and the cause of the water runoff. He was very upset that he had been unjustly accused and was deeply satisfied that he had been able to prove his innocence to his neighbor.
Perfect timing.
I opened the conversation with the story he shared about the neighbor and the sprinklers. I said, “It looks to me like you don’t like injustice and can probably understand how it feels to be unjustly accused.”
I said, “If a couple of people burned your house down with you inside, and you and your daughter had third degree burns from head to toe, and someone said to you, ‘The arsonists are happy! It makes them happy to burn down other people’s houses. Why can’t you be happy for the arsonists? You know, it wasn’t that great of a house anyway. Why can’t you move on and get over it?’ How would you feel?”
He said, “That would be insane.”
I said, “Exactly. My marriage and my life was my house. And I don’t think you realize your comments have been insensitive and hurtful, but they have been. Very.”
The look on his face looked like he genuinely had not thought about it that way. He apologized.
It looks like Traitor Ex has been running his mouth about God knows what for who knows how long. No surprise, of course, but this man
is the only employee that has come to me and asked me about what he has heard from Traitor Ex. I’ve known him to value integrity and he wants to verify what he is being told.
Of course, Traitor Ex is WAAAAAAAY out of line talking about me, the “marriage”, and the divorce to employees.
And yes, I am working my way out of that godforsaken business.
When someone robs a bank, keeps the money, spends the money, and blames the bank for being robbed (everything happens for a reason!) you can be sure they are still bankrupt in many ways.
I don’t know about this one you guys. I kind of get where the other woman is coming from. You see, back in my youth I went through a little phase where I hit several people over the head with a crowbar and mugged them. Sometimes I stole their cars too. I mean, if they had their keys on them and the car was right there, I wasn’t going to let that opportunity go to waste! They called me the crowbar crook. It was kind of a big deal in my small midwestern town.
But anyways, I realized that was wrong and don’t do that kind of thing anymore, yada yada, I”ve moved on. I never turned myself in or anything but like, I’m sorry, and I feel like that’s enough. So every year, on the anniversary of the day when I hit one of these people over the head and robbed them, I anonymously send them a nice scented candle and encourage them to light it to get over the stench of their bitterness about their lingering injuries, anxiety, and paranoia. It absolutely delights me to be able to help people in this way. And I’m sure it warms their hearts to know that I still think of them and know where they live.
In case anyone is still mad at me at this point, this is total satire. But this is always what this forced forgiveness from the perpetrators nonsense makes me think of.
^^^^^ ❤️ why I love Katie Pig ❤️ ^^^^^
😂
Spot on, Katie. And funny too! 🙂
Are we considering “return to sender” to be a “feel good/don’t do it” kind of thing? I think that’s what I would do.
Otherwise, Schmoopie’s conduct here is disgusting.
I agree that this is entirely impression management, if not seeking the blessing for the union. The irony of course is that if Schmoopie cared about our friend here’s consent there would have been no betrayal to begin with.
A candle and some crystals. Ptah! I like the “shaman” visual. There’s a shaman character on the final season of Squid Game. No spoilers, but “irony”.
You owe them nothing. Not a thank you card, not an RSVP, not a “gift in lieu of appearance”, nothing. Not even a response. Decorum was thrown out the window upon the betrayal, they have already smack-talked you to anybody that would listen. I repeat: nothing.
She won an idiot. I hope she has a good divorce lawyer lined up, because it’s a-comin’. Anybody that would cheat WITH you would cheat ON you. Who knows-she may even gets some crystals or a candle of her own!
I am a firm follower of “feels good/don’t do it” but I do sometimes enjoy thinking of the most outlandish thing I could do if I wasn’t so busy following this mandate.
OP could go, wear her original wedding dress, and heckle the vows.
Obviously, no, don’t. But it would serve the AP right to have her wedding ruined in this way. Bonus? If there were any guests that didn’t know this relationship started while the groom was already married? That will no longer be the case as everyone would be explaining why OP was there and acting that way.
What an ugly mess.
I’m not a fan of remaining silent in these situations. I wouldn’t go, but I would respond. Something to the point like:
I will not be attending. Please don’t contact me again. Elsie
Thankfully, I haven’t been there, though. The ex hasn’t contacted me or our young adults in years now. I doubt that we would even be invited.
Sage analysis from CL as usual, however there is one point to add: the delusions. Sometimes these FW/AP actions are caused by their flat out delusions about what is actually happening. About a week after D-Day Dr. D. Lusional, among other boneheaded moves, suggested that I join him and Mrs. Bendover for pizza and a movie… in my living room. In my home, with my husband and his “fiancee”. I was supposed to have a fine old time (during Covid lockdown nonetheless) with my husband and his Helium Headed Whore. Why? Because I was his “best friend” and he wanted to share his happiness with me. I’m not often speechless but this response took awhile: “If you let her into our home, upon which she does not hold title, I will call the sheriff and have her evicted.” He was flabbergasted. He had not the first clue that I would be offended for myself. I was supposed to be happy for him, as “everyone else” in the world was happy for him. Delusional. In outer space. So maybe OW/Bride of FW is really clueless as to reality, in addition to all of the manipulation that the wedding invitation implies.
The FW of my story also continued to call me his best friend and explain how when his AP finally moved to our state to be with him, he wanted me to remain his best friend.
I chocked that all up to image management. “It’s fine I left my wife and children for this woman because look, my wife is ok with it, she is still my best friend”
But I think there was some real delusion in there too.
So much of it was crazy but the part that I kept comingback to was “does he really think his AP is going to move here and be fine with him remaining best friemds with me?” And furthermore, once here SHE should become his best friend, no?
You might be on to something there. They really don’t think like normal people. I remember fuckwit wanting to give me some jewellery left behind by his bimbo whom he left his first wife for. I was angry, and asked him why on earth he would think I wanted stuff he’d bought for another woman. He looked at me in a I think, a genuinely puzzled way, and said, “I don’t think like that.”. Huge red flag which idiot me spackled over. Being a ‘ butter bunny’. 😣
In the spirit of “IF It Feels Good, Dont Do It”, I will share that I knew the general date that OW was getting married and this was my fantasy.
I wanted to send her a Happy Wedding card but concoct the message in a way that it would be COMPLETELY harmless if they were only friends but malevolent as HELL if they were Schmoopies.
It would read something like…
“Dear Susan,
_____ shared wit me that your wedding is soon. Because you two worked so closely together and became friends, I was thinking you might invite us to the wedding. Im sure the fact you didnt invite us was that you know we have 3 kids and you respect the reality of the cost of flying 5 people all the way to Seattle. You and he had shared so much about your families, you surely understood.
Because your friendship with ____ was so close, though, we may try to work it out to fly out to surprise you. Even if you didnt have a spot for us at the reception, we could make it to the wedding. It would be so fun to see you in your dress and meet some of your family and share with them how we came to know you and what good friends you and H are. As you can imagine, I am SO HAPPY for you to have found your person to have a wonderful life with.
Anyway, enjoy all the lead-up to your wonderful day and know that if we can pull it off, I would love for you to look out into the crowd and see us waving at you !! One way or another, I will find a way to share some sort of unexpected surprise for you as you get married. ”
Something like that. Like I said, I didnt do it. She married the fiancé she was cheating on when she cheated with my H. In the end, I let all revenge fantasies go unimplemented except that I sent one brief text telling her that Cheater died. I hope it ruined her whole year. Cheater died from complications of strep throat…I hope she gave it to him.
I watched a close friend get hoovered more than once by former bullies and creeps during a July 4th event over the long weekend.
Not kidding. I saw several people beeline to her and forcibly try to hug her and, when that didn’t work, a few tried to intrusively waylay her kids into “friendly” encounters which she found even more menacing.
For some background, this happened in the “idyllic” seaside town where we both started families but both left (her family pulled stakes completely and my kids and I only come back in summer) due to the icky Stephen King underbelly found in a lot of supposedly charming places.
Luckily for me I don’t have continuous roots in this region while hers are uninterrupted and go back centuries so that she knows and is known by everyone. She finds it suffocating yet still has friends there as well as a lot of fond memories associated with the natural beauty of the area. She joked she wanted to go to the event as a kind of “exposure therapy” or maybe to mentally reclaim turf. But instead it’s as if the town ghouls were trying to reclaim her sort of like zombie hands reaching up through a grave and grabbing her ankle.
I’ve experienced the same thing personally in various situations– having toxic people show up like bad pennies and try to force me into a friendly exchanges as if nothing ugly and irredeemable had ever gone down in the past. But being a bystander as it happens to someone else made me really appreciate how incredibly aggressive and demented the behavior is. And when this friend and I “debriefed” after the unsettling encounters, we had a mutual revelation about why horrible people do this.
In this sense, her deep intel on local characters and knowledge of where all the local bodies are buried was really illuminating. In story after story, it seemed the various local bullies and meddlers, pervs and jerks had continued to play happy families with, say, the relative who repeatedly raped them in childhood or the dad who battered their mother or the drunken socialite parents who catastrophically neglected them in infancy, etc..
So we figured that the hoovering behavior is somehow related to the dark side of the “Golden Rule” in the sense that damaged, dangerous people expect/demand to be forgiven for unforgivable behavior precisely the way they’d always forgiven the really unforgivable things done to them. Of course part of it is to create a public impression that they must not have done anything that bad to you if you’ll make friendsy public displays with them. But I suspect that, underlying all that, they want proof that other people are just as weak and spineless as they’ve always been about setting personal boundaries against abusive individuals and caving to social rules.
It might even explain how some of these freaks seem quite surprised and “hurt” when you repel the hoovering attempts. Basically their attitude is “But, but, but… I still regularly break bread with the psychos who sodomized me with rusty garden spades so why can’t you??”
My guess is that some close-knit communities can only “work” like that, especially if they last over several generations. If significant amounts of wealth are passed down from generation to generation, then that is an additional factor, I suppose. I think this is one reason why in modern times, many people choose to leave their small hometowns and start afresh somewhere else. This may often lead to loneliness, but staying would have been far worse.
Yes, it’s definitely about family estates and inheritance though I wouldn’t call this community “close knit.” A better term for it is “toxically collusive.” For instance, when an old dude in a Mercedes was spotted trying to lure 8 year old boys into his car, the police didn’t post it in the news bulletin… because real estate prices. It’s the same reason a group of parents clustered defensively around the district school when a credibly alleged child molester on staff was exposed in headlines despite the fact these parents had children in the target age range. And on and on.
The (Catholic middle-class) community I grew up in was somewhat similar, I believe. The funny thing is that my very abusive/toxic parents weren’t even part of that community (even if they were fairly wealthy). They were newcomers themselves. Yet, I was barely able to get any support from anyone when I started resisting my parents as a teenager. I guess this was partly because I wasn’t considered to be “one of them” (as my parents weren’t either). However, falling out with one’s parents was generally considered unthinkable because it made life so much harder from an economical perspective. I later moved to cities where people struggled much more and the idyllic life that people had in my hometown (mainly thanks to the prosperity of previous generations) was only possible for very few. I got used to it, but I sometimes feel like a failure to this day, because back then in my childhood it seemed like you could easily achieve a good life if you were just “well-behaved” enough and never questioned the older generations no matter what they did to you (or to anyone else).
It’s like being born on third base in hell.
I repeat this to myself almost daily….Forgiveness is not a substitute for boundaries, nor should it restore
unsafe or unhealthy connections. Neither does Forgiveness eliminate consequences.
Consequences are all cheaters understand..and to attend such an event is pick- me- dancing 💃 still, it is also eliminating any Consequences of your agreement to their triangle and it shuts down the voice of reason. In listening to Carl Jung, we as chumps need to channel the shadow side of our personalities, get angry and stop allowing these characters to pull us around by the tail. Even in my Christian spirit, my forgiveness is letting them go and be their own selfish selves while I care for the broken stain glass treasure that I am. It is true true true what CL has been trying to tell us…MEH MEH MEH is the answer. OK let it bug you, get angry but don’t give these creeps the pleasure of your precious company. Buy YOURSELF some high end cake with whipped cream frosting and celebrate your freedom from abuse. Or a pint of Hagen Daz or whatever you love. I went into shock when both my Xs announced their weddings. I found out about the first one via my 10 and 4 year old telling me they went to Las Vegas on daddy’s weekend!!! No warning and no permission. #2 hired my now former friend as his photographer, that’s how I heard..from her!! So no I would not go anywhere near those events. Enjoy your cheater free life!!
I’d like to borrow the nitwit line because it not only describes the OW but also backstabbing flying monkeys.
Methinks OW is desperate for image management at her wedding just as Tracy said. Chump’s attendance can be spun as kumbaya endorsement of the affair if she’s happy looking and oh poor bitter bunny ex wife if Chump looks unhappy and either way the OW “wins”.
Send OW an invoice for marital asset theft as your RSVP.
While the OP did not use the words “forgiveness,” that is what is implied by the “letting go and healing” idea. It would be tempting to reply to this OW:
“Are you asking for my forgiveness? Is that is what this about? Because if it is, I can’t really forgive you for ‘awkwardness.'”
Obviously, I agree with the No Contact advice. Don’t mind because she doesn’t matter… mind over matter.
I went looking for the original Reddit post (it was posted about 7 days ago, Reddit buries stuff pretty fast in a week) and it looks like the OP account is suspended. It’s possible the account suspension has nothing to do with the content of the post (Reddit is finicky and doesn’t say why a post is suspended) so the comments replying to it are visible but the post isn’t.
However, it was cross-posted on Instagram and I happened to find it there.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLknzUKMwjz/?igsh=dzF2bGk3OW1zd2Vq
Another example of the inner workings of the disordered mind.
I was sitting beside Cheaty McLiarface as we attended the wedding of his “really good friend” during the height of their “emotional affair”. Now, it makes me slightly queasy to know that I witnessed her making a vow to a man who didn’t have a chance to build a good marriage because she was in love with the man (loosely used) sitting beside me. I was clueless back then in part because I trusted him and because I simply could not concieve of how the disordered mind worked. Some days it’s still difficult to wrap my head around.
What they did it’s not forgivable. However, it is forgettable. Silence towards them and enjoy your life free fromFuckwit.
OMG OP, Please go! Respond yes for yourself and a plus one. Wear a wedding gown, your original if you have it, go and act totally normal. At the party, put on your veil. Say you are doing it because you took the bride’s message to heart and wanted to show that you’ve finally let go of your first husband and memories of that wedding, and no better way to do that than wear the original gown to help bride 2.0 celebrate her day. Or say nothing. But please do go!
Make the day all about you, just like she did to your marriage.
Wow…just wow. Of all the things I’ve read on this site, this is one of the craziest. Maybe not the craziest, but close.
What could the FW and AP possibly be thinking? This is so bizarrely inappropriate! As Chump Lady said, impression management.
Yes, everything happens for a reason is an excuse not to take accountability. You made it happen for a reason. The other thing I now call people out on is saying someones so lucky. Yeah, you worked your ass off and made good decisions and thats luck? Underlying these two sayings is seething resentment on the sayers part.
Damnit Tracy, you’re radicalizing us against the RIC with these posts! Thank you.😂
I think I read this one (I spend an embarrassing amount of time on Reddit – it’s fun to play “real, fake or ai?”). The comments were gold – so many suggestions CL would heartily laugh at and disapprove of 😆