Stupid Things Affair Partners Say
Schmoopies say the darnedest things. Oh, I know you should go totally no contact with affair partners. But they don’t often get the memo. In thrall to the pick me dance, determined to win their special cheater, they often spout ridiculousness at chumps.
You know, to pray for your immortal soul, or point out your many inadequacies.
I’m sorry to say, it’s generally Other Women who do this. I think the Other Men just skulk off, happy for the no-strings attached sex, and don’t feel the need (or want to risk the danger) of goading the man they’re cuckolding. But straight women affair partners (hello Patriarchy) — they seem to need the triumphalism. At least judging by my mail and the bazillion stories on this blog.
Ever heard from an affair partner? Did they critique your parenting? Send you a brownie plate for your divorce group? A nasty text message? Today’s Friday Challenge is your chance to point and laugh at it.
Tell CN — what stupid thing did an affair partner say to you?
TGIF!
She did contact me shortly after D day. We even met up. She was a mutual friend, married to FWs good friend.She didn’t say any bad things about me, she basically praised me and said she couldn’t believe why FW would cheat on me. She also tried very hard to be my friend and to copy me in some ways (before D day). She was oh so remorseful and even said she doesn’t know why she’s such a bitch and that there’s no excuse for what she did. And how neither she or my FW ever wanted to blow up our marriages or leave their spouses. Which was a big fat lie on her behalf. Because she basically told her husband everything and he then told me (even details about my FWs many other affairs, which I probably would never know about if she didn’t drop all the bombs at once). I think she wanted to blow up our marriage so I would leave and she could be with him. But he never wanted to be with her. Now we’re divorced and her husband took her back and is trying so hard that no one in our friend group would know about their affair. Spoiler alert: everybody knows because I told anyone I wanted to.
She’s probably still cheating on him too. Sounds like this guy found the true source of DeNial.
The (primary) AP I discovered was a married father and coworker of my now-former husband. D-day was mere weeks after I’d been tricked into a cross-country move so that these two “best guy friends” could work together. Turned out he’d been fucking my husband for 8 of the 15 years we’d been together at that point. I filed for divorce immediately, and shocked the shit out of these lovebirds.
This AP hated how strong I was. We already had bad blood before D-day because the year prior on a joint family vacation, he had yelled at my then-7-year-old son who had politely asked AP if he could help him in the kitchen. AP claimed he couldn’t hear over the loud kitchen fan what my son was asking and assumed incorrectly he was pestering him, so he yelled at my kid. I called AP’s ass out for that, and he apologized, but in narc fashion held a grudge and attributed my holding him accountable for mistreating my child as a symptom of my alleged “postpartum depression.” They would later try to paint me as an unstable mother in my custody battle.
In communications recovered during discovery for my divorce, AP frequently compared me unfavorably to his own doormat wife, who ultimately chose not to believe the proof my divorce lawyer eventually gave her. They are still married to this day. My ex and AP had many text conversations about how AP’s wife had a cheating dad of her own, so she was beaten down emotionally by her dad to be a better wife appliance who simply did what she was told, versus me who got lippy with them because my dad praised me too much and I didn’t have low self-esteem. Interesting theory. What a couple of cowardly closeted jackasses who can fuck right off!
You are awesome! I have to feel sorry for that woman willing to tolerate such bad treatment from her “husband”. Have you ever tried sending her the Chump Lady/Nation material even anonymously? Her mind is enslaved.
Hush, you are a badass! Wow! How did the custody battle turn out?
Thank you!! 💙D-day was 7+ years ago; the kids were 8, 6 & an infant. During the initial 26-month period after I filed in the state we’d just moved from, he filed 3 separate actions in the new state for divorce, full custody, and relocation, hiring & firing 2 different law firms to do this.
Thanks mainly to the jurisdictional skirmish & also to the naive new girlfriend he quickly found and is now fake “married” to, we settled all actions out of court after a couple trial days and I got 50/50 custody. He only took his custodial time with our older 2 until our baby was 4. He ended up getting fired from his job with AP (he sort of also quit) and moving out-of-state before getting the court’s permission to do so. His 3rd lawsuit (relocation) eventually forced me to move to his new state during Covid. It’s been a peaceful 3+ years here, shockingly. He must know I have several evidentiary aces up my sleeve to be played at the exact right time. He also knows I will take his ass to trial again in a heartbeat.
So….he’s been with this guy for 8 years – is he still seeing him? Does this girl have any idea about this guy? I’m always amazed at how cheaters continue to HAVE KIDS even though they’re totally uncommitted to their spouses!!! That always blows my mind that there’s so often a pregnancy, or infant, or toddler in the mix when these affairs come to light.
To my knowledge, AP and X are not romantically involved anymore, and aren’t even in touch as friends at all.
My X’s new beard certainly ought to have some idea of what he is. Seeds have been planted. My friends, and even her friends who ended up being teachers at my kids’ old school, have definitely warned her about my X and with proof. She is just ridiculously good at ignoring red flags – she is childfree and was never married at 45 when he preyed on her. Her 1st missed red flag 7+ years ago: knowingly choosing to date a married (separated) father of 3 kids including an infant, who had just walked out on his wife a few weeks after a cross-country move for his job, where coincidentally, one of his best male friends had also just been hired🚩🚩🚩and was going through an extremely contentious divorce 🚩🚩🚩”Don’t date married people, folks!”🙃
My God, you must have been chilled to the bone to realize you were in proximity to so much evil. Going after a *7 year old*? No empathy, no regard for children’s welfare… possible pedo on top of everything else? I worked in media and saw this combo a few times– cruelty to children by people who were later exposed as child rapists.
And how very Andrew Tate/PUA/MGTOW/Incel of those two sick twists to strategically assess women’s self esteem. It’s actually a thing among Pick Up Artist types on Reddit to suss out women’s relationships with fathers or lack thereof to determine how “malleable” and rape-able women might be.
I don’t think FW in my case was fully conscious about any of it but it was clear that my having an activist feminist dad who’d advocated for me my whole life probably made me a very poor chump appliance. Meanwhile the AP’s drunken, whoremongering, violently militant and misogynist pop created the perfect simpering bangmaid complete with internalized misogyny and enough demented, misdirected rage that she had no qualms about actively robbing kids’ college funds. In fact, the AP was a dead ringer for FW’s toxic mother whom he’d always surmised had grown up around sexual abusers because she was always defending abusers and refused to protect her own children. Since the whole dynamic was so Oedipal, I guess it’s no surprise the association wasn’t fully conscious on FW’s part.
HOAC
Oh f#@k you’re bloody right!
Ex started saying things about my father’s behaviour toward me (let’s just call it “shit stirring” but all in good fun), which FW was seemingly oblivious to for 25 years. Suddenly he was speculating I may have self esteem issues, and do you think that’s because of your father, etc. I thought FW was having some sort of awakening, actually showing an interest in another person’s internal world, but nah – he was just testing the temperature, sizing up the prey, hoping to God I had such low self worth I’d hang around for 5 more decades etc.
The strategising to keep the victim in their place is mind boggling.
That level of strategizing is straight-up psychopathic. You must be breathing sighs of relief all the time and saying novenas that you’re out of the monster’s labyrinth.
💯Exactly right! All of it. Both my ex and AP were very familiar with PUA and Men’s Rights propaganda, as I later learned. Major bullets dodged. AP was never around my kids again, and they apparently don’t talk anymore, after a falling out when my X was “terminated” 5 yrs ago by their former joint employer and AP stayed on. AP didn’t attend X’s fake wedding to his naive beard. (By “fake” I mean he grabbed the signed marriage license so it couldn’t be filed with the county clerk. 🫣 Psychopathic!)
What could explain women jumping on board PUA/radical men’s rights groups? That’s like the groveling, internalized misogyny pick-me dance Olympics.
Earlier today I was in a mental health chat with some pathetic creature who admitted she was into MRA because she had mommy issues and didn’t trust women.
That proved to be quite the conversation ender. I suddenly remembered I had left something in the oven too long and had to go. 😉
Makes sense. I was close to my mother and my default position is “Rah rah, sistahood!” Granted, I’ve been disappointed at times but my high expectations are met often enough that I always revert to factory “Rah rah, sistahood!” setting. For instance, I just had dinner with a scientist originally from Guinea who I met on a red eye flight. We talked all night when we met and still can’t shut up. I think we just solved all the world’s problems (rah rah rah lol).
Ex and AP are both men in this case.
Oh, yes, got the different chump narratives on the thread tangled. But it’s a similar question– how could women or gay men for that matter support incel and rad men’s rights nonsense? Talk about shooting oneself in the foot, spitting into the wind, etc.
Why is your wife calling me? I tried to call her to ask her to leave my husband alone…he told me she wouldn’t leave him alone and forced him to have sex with her and that he didn’t want to…yes I believed all of this at the time…
The AP sent me a message on FB messenger (I didn’t even know her name at that point so she obviously was dying to spill the beans). Yes, her ego aka narcissism since then has proven to be immense. “Stay away from your husband, he wants nothing to do with you”. She obviously appointed herself his bitch aka guard dog. I got extreme pleasure when I wrote that to my husband copying our adult kids with her message (along with telling him I will get a restraining order if she contacts me again). She’s been silent since (other than a few stalker-ish sessions of parking down my street afterwards) so it worked. I guess being called out on what she is, not responding to her, but revealing her behaviour to my then husband & my kids had a muting effect on her gloating bark. Of course, she flaunted it on FB instead. Narcissists must narcissist after all!!
“Stay away from your husband” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ya, Schmoopie is too territorial to think of how stupid that sounded! 😂
None of them said shit to me because apparently I’m a psychopath and everyone was terrified of me and I forced my poor, abused husband to marry me and then stay married to me for 20 years.
Later I found that really funny because he was the one who talked about murdering me and I was terrified but ok, I suppose that worked in my favor since they didn’t contact me. I had some really scary and weird stalker type issues that were reported to the police and my work and it’s all documented in case it ever starts up again but no one dared to speak to me.
Hmm, I never realized what a blessing it is when FWs cast chumps as demonic psychos to their APs. You’re totally right. Considering research associations between “mate poachers” and “psychopathy,” it might even be life saving (though I’m sure any positive effect is inadvertent on FWs’ part).
KatiePig, this must be a subtype. I got the same thing. In 9 years since Dday, primary AP has never once showed her face to me…. Apparently FW told her he couldn’t leave because I would be suicidal…. Uh, no! I was devastated but not that. He’s definitely not worth my life! Sicko. AP later told our grown kids how amazing and “unusual” I am because I’m a successful lawyer and mother to 4 kids. She’s childless, 15 years younger than me and FW, and went to law school on FW’s dime since Dday. Trying to be me????? Disgusting
Omg how did we choose these cookie cutter idiots?
Trying but lying….just can’t make the grade.
Glad you got out of there safely! Yes, I also marvel at how well psycho dudes can play the victim so convincingly, and get women to overlook the obvious “Bitches Be Crazy” red flag 🚩CL has written about and these types of lovefraud predators are so often flying.
Just bear in mind that not all women fall for the “bitches be crazy” line of bull. I didn’t fall for disparaging gossip about other kids in seventh grade so why was I going to fall for it from random dudes I dated?
For instance, while I was still in college, I went on a few dates with this fancy young Ivy League PBS producer. He seemed very accustomed to dazzling the babes with his hipster designer suits and blue diamond stud that sparkled so nicely next to his globe-trotting tan. But when he started complaining about the “possessiveness” of an ex gf– a rather well-known and very beautiful African American journalist with kind eyes– then admitted that he’d cheated on her, I remember feeling almost protective towards this woman I’d never met. I actually felt hurt on her behalf. Who the hell was his nitwit to be violating this woman’s privacy to a stranger? Given the choice, I’d probably rather be friends with her than date him. I imagined she’d had to work extra hard to rise to the position she had. After that date, I ghosted him and didn’t feel one bit bad about it.
The only thing she ever did if fw was being honest (who knows) was accuse me of calling her after the separation. I only know because fw showed up at my house and ever so gently told me that whore was getting phone calls that were upsetting her… I cut the ass wipe off in mid sentence and said “first of all I never once called her, or anyone else, I don’t do anonymous and I wouldn’t give either of you the satisfaction”, I must have been screaming pretty loud because he looked terrified and started backing out of the house. Last I heard of anything he or the whore was experiencing.
It never even entered my mind to call that odious whore, it wasn’t like who and what she was, was a big secret. He wasn’t her first married man rodeo.
She did contact me when we were trying to settle. Basically, she asked me why I was so evil and trying to get so much money from him and so on. Did not respond but I am sure she knew how much he spent on her. I knew too and I got (hopefully) every penny back plus the amount of a vacation he prepaid for with Schmoops.
Well, she won her prize, and he has 56% less than what he thought he had (he figured he would have 100%). I have a great life and am FW free!!!!!!!
It is amazing that these ass holes think they are going to skate away with it all. It makes no sense that they (or any reasonable) person thinks they are going to just take it all. But then when we realize that for some time they really have had access to it all, and been doing exactly what they wanted to with no push back, well why wouldn’t they think that.
My fw was an extreme controller, and I guess it makes sense that he thought he would continue to be in control of the outcome one he filed. They are after all very special people, just ask them.
Mine expected this too! I was actually not going to go for alimony as I’m not big on the concept of it in general. I’m an adult woman, I can support myself. But the two people I had supporting me emotionally both told me I needed to go for it because I had made sacrifices for him. I had worked my entire life around his needs and schedule for years and years.
I had received a small inheritance from my father. I was planning to take that and get a low paying job and start over in life at 40. Then while discussing the terms of the divorce he explained to me how we would split my inheritance and it was like something cracked inside of me. He was making four times what I was and he wanted half of the money from my dead, abusive, long estranged father. I called the lawyer that night and asked what my rights were and what I could get. It’s disgusting how entitled they feel to absolutely everything and anything in life.
Split your inheritance…yeah, that’s a good one.
Oh I would have had no issue taking alimony, I worked my ass off in the community and in politics to push his fat ass up the ladder; but our state didn’t have it. It did have temp maintenance until the D was final. I asked for six months, I could have gotten three years, but I didn’t want to be connected to him that long. He delayed at the six month point, and I got six more months. He had to pay the house payment, car payment and utilities except for my phone bill and water bill. So I was able to save some money for my restart. I have no idea why he delayed it, I suspect so he could figure out the best way to maneuver so he wouldn’t get his ass fired, but who knows.
Maybe he felt guilt (bwa ha ha ha) we all know better than that. Nah, I think he was ass kissing at warp speed to keep his position in his cushy office next to the mayor. He got drop kicked back to street patrol within a year, but he didn’t get fired.
She’s never really had the balls to speak to me directly. Or hasn’t yet, anyway. I’d love the chance to eviscerate her with snark so subtle she probably wouldn’t even pick up on it.
FW, however, was kind enough to convey that she “thinks you’re a strong woman. She respects you.”
“Respect”… I don’t think that word means what you think it means, receptacle. Enjoy your sparkly turd though!
Seriously. I got something similar. But they both deny they did anything wrong. They were friends and didn’t fall for each other until he moved out. Total BS.
Ah, yes, I got “My girlfriend feels so terrible for you and is worried about you. She has told me to make sure to take care of you and [daughter] because she knows how hard this must be for you.”
Does she? A 22yo sugar baby knows what it’s like to have your husband bail on a 21-year relationship for someone he PAID to have s3x with? Who was one of many he paid?
And how dare they both pretend that either of them cared about me or my feelings. If they did they wouldn’t have been cheating for 4 years. Well, 4 years together; his was about double that if he’s to be believed. And he’s not.
The AP asked me to have coffee so that I could get to know him better, he also sent me a text on my son’s hockey information. I declined both and told him my ex is to only contact me through our agreed upon channels and I blocked his number.
In my case, the AP didn’t even have the balls to ask me himself. My XW asked me to do it.
This came up because I had offered for his kids to come to my house since XW was complaining that my strict adherence to the custody schedule was impeding their relationship with their new step-siblings. XW and AP found it “weird” that I would treat his kids nicely, I’m sure because they don’t understand why my attitude towards the kids (who are among the victims) would be different than my attitude towards the two of them (who are the perpetrators).
Long story short: I offered to facilitate my kids’ relationship with their step-siblings; XW and AP refused to allow this thing that they wanted unless I met with AP and became friends with him.
If you became “friends” with this POS, it would be your stamp of approval on their relationship and they could skip down the lane forever thinking they did nothing wrong and everyone should throw roses at them instead of bricks.
It’s like they want you to be friends with them, everything will be alright…I have one disordered person I have to deal with, why would I want to deal with two?
Exactly the same thing happened at the other spouse’s house, too: the step-siblings took my kids to see their dog at their mother’s house. They all had a great time. AP forbad them going over again unless their mother made a pilgrimage to his house to “embrace” my XW. (To be clear, this is once again the AP demanding to be friends with the chump, but in this case it’s the OW demanding it of the betrayed wife, whereas in my case it was the OM demanding it of the betrayed husband, who is me. Even I get confused sometimes, since with one affair destroying two marriages there’s a lot of gender-reversed similarities).
Long story short: my kids and step-siblings bond; my XW and AP refused to allow this thing that they wanted unless his XW meets with my XW and formally forgives her.
Fortunately for me his first marriage was short lived and he doesn’t have any children, she married a younger guy who’s known in our town i.e a washed up sports talent who’s trying to leverage connections after a “rough patch” in life (she’s materially and status obsessed). They’re both narcs that will feed off each other.
They can never get out of their own way. They assume everyone has nefarious motives because they are so disordered.
How weird that XW and AP saw themselves on the same level as the collective kids in the situation, almost like you’d become some patriarch symbol to the whole lot and were supposed to treat all your “charges” equally. But the fact remains that gross immaturity and scary baby tantrums in grown-ass adults does not make them touchingly “childlike” or innocent.
I don’t see it that way. I think XW and AP have drunk so much of their own kool-aid that they genuinely believe that they are faultless. Since they’re not at fault, I must be. Since I am the bad guy (this is literally how AP described me to his kids, according to their mother) and bad guys are nasty to everyone – even kids – naturally AP and XW think it’s “weird” that I would be warm and welcoming to the step-siblings.
Most of this is pretty old, but get this: I am bad. My family is bad (by the transitive property of badness). Several people in my family went to Harvard, so Harvard is bad (again by the transitive property). My XW is severely disappointed in our daughter, therefore, because she went to Harvard. Harvard is in the Ivy League, therefore the Ivy League is bad. Brown is also in the Ivy League, so Brown is also bad. My XW is currently severely disappointed with our son, therefore, because he is going to Brown. End result: my XW is disappointed in our daughter and son for going to Harvard and Brown, respectively, due to those institutions’ badness acquired by association with me.
Is it just me, or is this hilarious? Harvard is bad simply because some of your relatives attended, and Brown is bad because it’s in the Ivy League like Harvard? And by attending, your kids are disappointments? On second though, NOT funny and not just stupidity. Seems like more envy and resentment.
Sorry you and your kids have to deal with this level of animosity. They should be celebrating your kids’ accomplishments, not dissing them.
Well, I only know about this because my kids relayed it to me in the context of “crazy stuff mom says”, so I think the kids will be all right.
The full story is that my XW was proud of our son up until last weekend when she visited him at Brown and discovered, to her horror, that Brown is in the Ivy League – whereupon she promptly changed her opinion of Brown and of him. XW is not American so this is all very plausible. Everyone involved (except XW) thinks this is pretty funny.
Also, XW got her graduate degree from Princeton so there’s an overlay of hypocrisy of which the kids are well aware.
IG–
Wait– I’m really trying to wrap my mind around this whole thing because my gut tells me there’s some important revelation in the fact that your XW– in this really bizarre, reverso-world, twisted circus mirror way– feels traumatized that she didn’t manage to destroy you and inculcate your kids to turn against you? So that now everything that reminds her of you– your alma mater or any school in the same league– has become a “trauma trigger” and reminds her of her defeat?
I wonder if that’s how serial killers feel about victims who get away. Like, say, the victim was wearing a brown t-shirt so the serial killer breaks into a trembling sweat every time they see a UPS truck? It’s almost hilarious.
Yes, I guess. I kind of feel like that about her (she’s Italian and I still feel a gut-level dislike of a lot of Italian things; it made cooking for kids pretty hard for a while) and – since in her DARVO mind I am actually the villain – she feels that way about things associated with me (in this case, the Ivy League).
The real issue, to be honest, isn’t that XW feels that way about the Ivy League but that she is unable to set that feeling aside for the sake of the kids. I still encourage the kids to learn to speak Italian and to visit Italy because I can distinguish between my emotional hangups and what’s good for the children, but XW doesn’t make that distinction because she honestly can’t conceive that others (me, but also our kids) might have needs that differ from hers. XW is not a bad person per se, but she is so cripplingly self-centered that her actions (due to supreme indifference to others’ wellbeing) are sometimes hard to distinguish from malice.
I don’t know, IG. In my estimation, she sounds like a bad person– the kind I stay away from and keep my kids far away from in any case. I know you don’t have the latter choice but you’d done very well simply by modeling the better model so to speak. It sounds like your children have things in perspective.
I should probably qualify my low tolerance by the fact that I generally don’t let openly scaly, fanged, fire-breathing monsters into my inner realm so most of the “bad” I’ve ever dealt with was disguised as “kinda alright” on the surface. Until the bottom drops out, you find yourself vulnerable and– oopsie!– they stab you in the eye sockets. Or it’s sort of like how a snappy, irritable little Pomeranian dog seems relatively harmless until you have a stroke or leave your newborn near it and it either eats your face off as you’re lying paralyzed on the floor (as has happened) or kills your baby (as has also happened). Consequently I measure people’s relative safety or “goodness” according to how safe or good they’d be if I was at my absolute lowest which, life being life, can sometimes happen.
I have many of the current phone numbers of the 20-55 year old prostitutes to whom eX paid money for sex, but since I choose to not ever phone them up, I blessedly will not have to hear the “It’s all your fault, you wife, that married men visit me” lie.
I have no idea what rationale my ex’s rent-boys give, nor am I going to waste one precious moment of my life on them. What I have noticed is the way my husband gradually came to treat all of his relationships as transactional over the years, and I suspect his being mired in the universe of sex-for-pay fed into this worldview. He’s always been a cheapskate (he calls himself “thrifty”), but only after I discovered his secret life I finally started to realize what his thought process was.
As a result of my personal experience, I will never again buy into the narrative that prostitution is a victimless crime. It’s the opposite: it’s a universe where the social contract is entirely suspended; where all parties are predators looking to see how much they can get away with, knowing their partner will never go to law enforcement.
I look at his relationships with his own family and what passes for a circle of friends, and it’s the same mistrust and paranoia he dumped on me for decades.
These people have no interest in legalizing prostitution, any more than a big-game hunter would want to arm elephants with the sophisticated hunting gear they themselves use, to “even the field”.
What’s-her-name emailed me at work, to tell me she didn’t want to have any contact with me.
If she didn’t want contact, how about not emailing me? It was ironic. I didn’t choose to know her. I was forced to know about her, because she chose to involve herself in my life and my marriage, in a deep, invasive, insulting way. She knew everything about what was happening in our family, e.g. my struggle with my miscarriages and mental health, my mother-in-law’s physical health. And she was presumably whispering in FW’s ears that whole time.
AP was in an open marriage and got FW into that lifestyle. She’s got a whole set of rules for her marriage, like “not coming into contact with affairs’ partners” because it makes life easy for her and her husband. There was nothing ethical about what she was doing. She knew full well from the beginning that FW was cheating on me. It got her laid so she didn’t care. She advised him on how to force polyamory on me. And then emailed me out of the blue to tell me the rules she made up for my behaviors.
I was at rock bottom, processing the shock of who my husband really was and what reality turned out to be. And yet, she was so delusional and stupid, I had to laugh. At first, I couldn’t see who FW really was. But this email allowed me to see who the AP was, and to realize that FW was attracted to her because he was exactly like her.
“She advised him on how to force polyamory on me. And then emailed me out of the blue to tell me the rules she made up for my behaviors.”
Total lunatic and a rapey bitch, hoping FW would force you into a sexual lifestyle you didn’t want. Disgusting!
PS: I’m ok. Did some (rough) jokes about it last night.
This is one of the worst stories I’ve seen in a long time. I’m glad you got away from these people.
Chumpion, I’m so sorry you went through all this. I find your story particularly heartbreaking, because of the profound invasion of your privacy and then, on top of that, the AP and FW’s conspiracy to force you into polyamory. I’m glad that that email from the AP pushed you into a moment of clarity that helped you decide to get far away from these people.
About 2 years after Dday Skankella sent me a text. I am not sure how she got my number. Even though we were cousins we did not see each other for 15 years. Her text said ” Hey bitch I know you have been spreading my number every where. And if we ever run into each other I will kick your ass. I will call the police bitch.” I was not spreading her number. What a class act she is. She screwed around with my husband for 4 years behind my back. And she threatens me.
She also was telling people that I was a nut job. What a special breed these other women are.
She was probably seeing at least one other guy besides your husband and that’s probably who was spreading the numbers around. When you live like that, you have a lot of enemies.
At that time her and my ex split. You are probably right. She most likely was screwing another married man.
I have a few from her calling me a “fat bitch” wherein I actually lost 40 pounds from DDAY to FW telling me her and her friends making fun of me saying that I don’t know how to keep my man ..
The OW who started sleeping with klootzak 3 weeks after our wedding sent me a message on FB messenger years later. All of klootzak’s OW overlap and this particular one maintained contact and fuck visits with him for about 8 years that I know of. Anyway… she sent a message at one point begging me not to tell her college aged son about her fucking my husband. I just ignored and deleted that one. Then a few years later she sent another cryptic message saying I had “been on (her) mind a lot lately” and that there are “things (she needs) to say and if (she) could tell (me) in person, (she) would.” Well… fuck her needs. I took screenshots of that weird ass message and added it to my evidence pile.
It’s not enough for them to conspire in our abuse; they need to get direct contact to get higher on the pain they cause. It’s not satisfying enough for them to be party to causing harm. They can’t rest without trying to get in your head and know how much damage has been done. And if FW has broken off contact with them, they try harder to make sure they are not forgotten. I think that was what occurred in this particular case. I think the AP in question was ghosted by klootzak and she needed to feel some centrality kibbles from somebody. I take great pleasure in not responding to the bait.
I think they thrive on the drama. Once the divorce is final and you’ve moved on the drama dwindles. OW misses it so she stirs the pot trying to dredge it up again.
So basically a lot of FWs and poachers are just members of a really spineless, wormy, Walter Mitty-ish breed of would-be serial killers who, though they genuinely need to cause suffering to know they exist, generally don’t have the cajones to actually draw blood? Makes perfect sense to me.
“t’s not enough for them to conspire in our abuse; they need to get direct contact to get higher on the pain they cause. It’s not satisfying enough for them to be party to causing harm. ”
I think that is what dragging the co conspirator to meet the chump. For the life of me after I found out about FW and his whore, I couldn’t figure out why he would drag her to our house to sit on my couch and talk to me. They both had to get some kind of kick out of it. I don’t have sneaky/criminal mind, but I can’t imagine if I was screwing someone’s husband, I would want to go meet her and sit in front of her.
How did you handle that? I can’t imagine someone trying to create that scenario. Did you actually talk to her at that point?
Oh I was clueless in real time. She was his employee and he used the ploy that he wanted me to meet her. She even brought her “boyfriend” with her who was a 20 year old boy, she was 35. However, I think I might have posted this before but FW and I had just a few weeks earlier gone on an anniversary weekend thing, and a funny thing happened at the motel. It was not personal but just funny and I was telling the story and she sat there looking straight at me, but her eyes looked weird, like they weren’t focused on me.
I looked over at FW and he was staring straight at her. I didn’t recognize it in real time (spackle I guess) but a few months later that was one of the first things I thought of. She was evidently pissed because I am sure he told her we had a dead bedroom (we didn’t) at least not then.
He also had her and her best female friend seated with us at the same table at his work Christmas party. I knew by then something was going on, but I still didn’t suspect her, because she just was not an appealing person. If I had suspected anyone it might have been her friend who was reasonable attractive. But anyway, I just really would like to understand the phenom of them dragging the alley cat in front of the spouse. So weird. Much like how a cat drags in the dead rat as a present for its master.
Oh and yes, I was pleasant to her, as she was his employee, and I even filled in the awkward gap after I evidently spilled the beans.
Yes, I felt pretty stupid after it all went down.
Oh and I shared this before too. At that Christmas party we were also seated with our best friends. Anyway whore and whores friend sat down. And whores friend was all sweet and syrupy and said to me: “you and fw make such a cute couple, you guys are always walking around the park holding hands, the whole city would be shocked if you got a divorce.
My friend made some kind of remark, I can’t remember it, but I just stared at her and then I leaned over to FW and said why is she saying that? He just whispered “she is an idiot”.
Like I said I already knew something was up but for some stupid reason I just didn’t suspect either of them. I was figuring on a 20 something type whore, not a middle aged one. Probably because half of the PD had left their wives for young whores.
Anyway, when he got presented his cash bonus, he came back to the seat and I laid a big kiss on his lips (acting on my part), as he had been treating me like dog shit for a couple months by then. So I don’t know maybe something deep in me did suspect her.
By the way she sat there the whole night just staring straight ahead not focusing one anyone in particular. So maybe she also isn’t very bright, after the fact I was told that she wasn’t. And he was always talking about things she screwed up at work. But she was smart enough to secure her meal ticket.
Also, for the record we never walked around holding hands on a regular basis. We didn’t hang all over each other.
No contact from AP. She never cared about winning. She dumped FW long before I found out. He tried to email her as he could see DDay looming, but she replied back with a bland, friendly message. FW and AP each lived in their own little narcissistic bubbles and neither had any idea I was talking to AP’s husband for like a year and a half planning out our respective divorces.
She’s the epitome of a very sparkly turd, so even though I would have loved for her to pick a fight at the time, now I’m not even sure what I’d say to her. It would be a waste of time.
The rat faced whore sent me a letter a few weeks after D day, complaining I was upsetting the fuckwit, and making him feel guilty. Which was hilarious, considering I was totally NC, and everything went through my solicitor, so heaven knows what he was telling her. She went on to complain he had problems with his erection, and this was my fault, because ‘he felt so guilty’. Very stupidly I broke NC and told fuckwit if she ever contacted me again I’d take out a restraining order. She denied it of course, but fuckwit painstakingly sent me a text explaining how to copy it, and send him a copy. I didn’t bother though, just got my solicitor to send a ‘cease and desist letter.
Traitor Ex said she defended me to him, as in, “Don’t talk about your wife that way!” Though an expert con artist himself, he did not realize this was a con on her part, a way to ingratiate herself and make her look like a “kind person”, impression management necessary to gain his trust and to get into our money.
So far, and just what I know of, she has managed to climb from her status as a roommate in a crap house in a crummy neighborhood to the co-owner of a very nice 700K condo and the proud co-owner with him of an illicit massage parlor, on which 500K was spent to buy the property, remodel it, and open for business.
Recently I ran into them driving on the local freeway one night. It appeared she was laughing at me.
But as English is not her first language, she may be unaware of the old saying “she who laughs last laughs longest and loudest.”
Let’s just say there’s a nuclear bomb of legal coming and I will be laughing last and long and very loudly.
Stay tuned.
Burn it all down, girl!!!
Cheater said that Susan of Seattle told him that maybe her task was “to teach him to love Unicornomore more”…Im sure he had told her that 18 years and 3 kids into marriage that he never loved me. How noble of her…I wonder which hotel they were in when she made that comment.
I spoke to her once on the phone after Dday. Cheater later told me that she said that she didnt understand all I said since I used really big words. She graduated from The U of Washington (state) and now has a PhD…not sure which of my words were too big for her
Another friend/coworker who I later realized was an AP…she emailed him inviting him to join her on a trip (far away to see his parents and she knew I was likely not going to be along). I emailed her and told her to quit asking my husband to dinner and she said “How would you think I was making an inappropriate invitation, I will be traveling with my PARENTS!!” I guess her parents justify dating married men
Heck yeah! I can’t wait!
My father, who (full disclosure) was a narcissistic, cheating and abusive piece of shit informed me that there was something he thought I ought to know: my sister was sleeping with my husband. When I confronted my sister, she expressed indignation that I would dare to talk to Dad about her. (I didn’t — he talked to me.) And then she said I ought to just get over it. She neither denied sleeping with my husband nor apologized for it. The problem wasn’t that she betrayed me by sleeping with my husband; the problem was that I had “talked to Dad about her.” She didn’t speak to me again for a few years. I am fully no contact now, four decades and two more husbands later. I don’t miss her a bit.
I’d say you win for most despicable AP. Your own sister, FFS.
Sadly, it’s not as rare as I thought it was. I know at least two other women whose sisters betrayed them in the same way.
My online alias relates to the AP’s nickname for me, which was apparently “She Devil” or “Devil Woman.”
The AP never met me but apparently had all sorts of opinions about me–for one, that I was a social misfit (?). Odd since I’d been throwing a lot of adult and kid parties at that time and FWs chief complaint was that there were always “too many people around.” Go figure. Maybe it was pure projection. I don’t think the AP was very well liked at work since I found out about the affair from a couple coworkers. Or maybe it was wishful thinking since a “misfit” would have little social support and therefore there could be less social blowback for victimizing and exploiting people. It would make me an easy mark, right?
Speaking of exploiting, projecting and wishful thinking, the AP also opined that I “should get a job” because the fact that I gave up a career to be full time caretaker/homeschooler for our then chronically ill, disabled middle child after the latter was physically assaulted by school staff made me a “parasite.”.According to the roughly $40K that the AP managed to ply out of family assets, it seems she was already planning ahead to reduce potential alimony and child support. I don’t think she consulted on this plan with FW though since he continued to drunkenly trawl other bang targets throughout the affair and seems to have had no plans to marry the AP. In any case, FW dumped the AP unceremoniously when he learned she’d gotten drunk at work and reportedly bragged to coworkers that she was secretly flushing birth control pills.
But the devil comment was what really prompted my attorney and a lawyer friend to suggest that I up security after D-Day and be on guard for potential “bunny boiling.” Because the AP came from a militantly evangelical, neofascist family (another “go figure” since FW has always supposedly been an agnostic social democrat), I was never sure if use of so-called “devil terms” was particularly tailored to me or just a popular dehumanizing attack in the AP’s spooky clan. But a lot of domestic terrorism that happened since has made it clear that “devil terms” aren’t necessarily idle rhetoric since there were active plots to kill some of the public figure targets of these “devil” epithets.
Thankfully, short of some social media stalking, no “bunny boiling” came to pass. But for awhile it felt like FW had dragged the kids and I down into the muck of some trashy, creepy underworld. It’s unforgivable that he would even put us in proximity to disordered freaks.
Don’t know when this happened but about 30 years or so ago a wonderful book came out called “Lives and Loves of a She-Devil” – by Fay Weldon. It sparked both a British TV show with Julie T. Wallace (awesome) which was AMAZING!!!!!!! and a movie I believe with Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr. If you can ever catch the British TV show I highly recommend it. It’s about a poor, downtrodden chump whose husband takes up with this very sparkly, hatefully trendy cute little author type with the perfect life and how CHUMP TAKES REVENGE on both. I think it should be required viewing for all chumps! Julie T. Wallace and Miriam Margoyles are wonderful in it as is the woman who plays the AP, I forget her name now.
It is a brilliant book and series. The AP is played by Patricia Hodge. (UK chump who watched the series when it came out originally!).
This happened four years ago. I had literally just seen the film for the first time on Netflix or Amazon before D-Day and it was the first thing I thought of when I heard about the “devil” epithet. The second thing that occurred to me is that the AP bears a certain resemblance to Roseanne Barr’s character (but with pitted acne scars in place of the giant mole) and I’m on the Streep-y side. But I honestly don’t think the AP was referencing the film. Apparently the AP’s parents actually thought people like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were demons sent by Satan to destroy America.
Thankfully, wifetress has not contacted me at all. It’s been 4 years since D-day, and, if the FW is to be believed, which he’s not (see: lying liars who lie), another nearly 3 years since they started having an affair. So, in 7 years, she’s had the good sense not to cross my path. Their move to her hometown, 2000+ miles away, makes chance encounters now virtually impossible.
And since my adult kids are NC with their dad, he and wifetress are never invited to weddings and the like. Even their dad’s own siblings’ kiddos seem to have decided that he (and therefore schmoopie) are unwanted at family events. They invite me and my kids instead. Of course, I suppose that could change.
If it should happen, and I hope it doesn’t, I will hold my head high, even if I’m screaming inside. I do like appreciate the observation that it’s the AP who should dread these encounters.
One last thing: this discussion brings to mind the issue of what BS the FW might feed the APs to allow them to not only put a justifiable sheen on their affairs but also to be angry with the chump. The chump who was clueless!!! The chump who was abused!! I don’t get it. How backwards is that?
I think FWs’ anger at chumps falls under the same psycho principle of serial killers being really enraged at their own victims, particularly the ones who tried to fight back or call for help.
Ex-FW was 50 and she was 19. She was studying family services and child psychology so, although she didn’t send me a note, she did send me several photocopies from her college textbooks with pointers on how to help my children (then 8 years old and 8 months old respectively) with the pain of divorce. When my daughter’s hamster died a few years later, she sent me more copies from her textbooks on grief.
No wonder it’s become a cliche that the sickest twists are often drawn to “helping professions.” So this asshole willingly acts as proxy abuser with a FW to deceive and abuse a chump, then breaks up a family and severely traumatizes the children involved, not to mention likely draining said children’s college funds… and then has the audacity to give *child-rearing advice*? Just wow.
Wow, you win. Holy cow.
She’s a real gem. Per FW, she is really sad I can’t be the bigger person about all this because, now that she’s 24 and my elder child is 15, they’re so close in age she can be like a big sister to her. I’m just so glad she ended up with the FW. I can laugh at all of it now.
Now that is a person I would not want as a big sister to my 15-year-old — an exotic dancer who sleeps with married men and is studying child psychology to fix her obvious trauma.
So sorry this happened to you.
is it just me or is it wrong for a 50 year old to be with a 19 year old….. it feels creepy
Oh, it was totally gross. Although it was definitely more gross when she was still a teenager, even now when she’s 24, he looks like her father when they’re together. It’s a very bizarre pairing, but she was his favorite exotic dancer at the time and I think she’s too young and naïve to see this for what it is. I don’t feel bad for her but I can’t help as a parent wondering when she’ll wake up to this. Ironically, he lives in her inherited condo so it’s like a reverse sugardaddy arrangement. He gets taken care of by the young woman.
Just trying to give a little objective feedback: I knew by age 12 that middle aged married dudes that gawk at younger women were sick and that their poor wives and children were victims. Don’t give this creep any benefit of the doubt. She’s a soulless freak. Guard yourself accordingly.
The AP in my situation was (is) very ballsy but never had the balls to actually talk to me. Instead, when FW told me (when I was 8 weeks pregnant) that he was leaving me and he was involved with her, his words were “she really hopes you like her and she wants to be friends with you.” I mean, if this is not completely out of touch with reality then I don’t know what is.
I’m so sorry, I hope your life is on the upward. ❤️
Despicable! I’m so sorry that happened to you. We’ve said it here before, but I’ll say it again: there’s a special place in hell for people who cheat when their wives are pregnant. Unbelievable!
I’ve been watching a lot of Chinese anime recently and one of the frequent themes is about harems. Some emperor or prince will have a harem and our intrepid heroine tries to handle him and the other women (there are reverse harems with a woman involved with several men but a lot less). These women generally hate and compete with each other, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly, and they’re always catty. They also try to push their own kids forward over the other women’s. Unfortunately this was real life for many women throughout history. Some (especially wealthier) men have physically been in a position where they can have a number of women, like cattle, and they end up vying for his attention over the others, and trying to push their own children forward. This is why polygamy is always such a socially destructive practice – we can see that from Biblical examples to the Ottoman Empire to Imperial China. No one should have to compete with entrenched rivals for love and sex and resources from one person. Everyone needs their own special, unique person, and harems are inherently destructive. This should be obvious now but the numbers of people, especially men, who think they can be involved with several women at once, especially wealthier men, is still significant, especially if they think they can “afford” it….and that one woman is given the “honor” of being Number One Wife or Concubine. I was with one of those years ago and believe me….it’s no honor being part of a herd.
You bring up an important point. I wish some spectacular historian/humanist/journalist would tackle the issue of the psychological effects on children of “harem” arrangements. I’m sure there’s a lot of accessible history and related political and social effects of this value system that could be studied and argued.
This is why polygamy is always such a socially destructive practice
This is why polygamy became illegal in the US. Because, it created an unhealthy power dynamic, and the loss of autonomy for women. Not to mention the lesson it teaches children that women are less than men.
I have read folks talk about ethical poly, but if children are involved they can take that shit argument to the dumpster.
The main dynamic of these polygamous relationships is…..insecurity. Trying to foster a sense of insecurity among the participants so the harem master can stay in control of everyone. You could lose your honorable status at any point.
I think some APs try to be “close” to the cheater’s spouse based on the old idea of keep your friends close and your enemies closer to figure out what they know and what they’re gonna do. Some of it is about image saving, especially after the affair is open, but a lot of this is spy work, sabotage (of the marriage) and cover-up. It’s detestable.
I just can’t imagine living my life like that…. it’s disgusting. they are seriously people who love to fill their life with drama because they have nothing else.
Um, let’s see… haven’t spoken with AP in maybe 6 years. One month before DDay FW invited me to join him at a BBQ at her house “for all their mutual coworkers.” When I arrived, she said “I didn’t know YOU were coming!” And there were no coworkers there, just FW grinning like a Cheshire Cat and a couple of clueless neighbors. While everyone was chatting, AP blurted “You know MichelleShocked, FW is the only one left who’s still married in our office. Everyone else is divorced.” So…. Let’s just say that moment helped make me suspicious enough to figure out what was happening soon after. Turns out they AP really just wanted my son and her boys to hang out so AP could prove to FW that all would be great when he left us.
After DDay, I had to meet AP to discuss my 9 year old son because son was going to meet AP officially. The coparenting coordinator recommended it. AP just parroted BS from FW. When I voiced concern about my son and how he was having difficulty with the transition and shock of his dad leaving, she said “he’ll get over it.” I said “sadly, you’re mistaken.” And guess who was right?
Son still hates that cold hearted bitch AP (8+ years later) and for the past 4 years hasn’t spent a minute with her. His FW dad has to spend time and vacations with his son without AP 🤷♀️ (AP and FW live less than 2 miles from us)
AP: “But what we had was so real!”
Me: Uh huh. Yet all the time he was promising undying love and to marry you as soon as his “crazy ex-wife who won’t let him go” (apparently my assigned role in this little drama) got over herself, he was also promising his wife that he’d learned his lesson and would make their marriage work whatever it took.
I didn’t find Chump Lady till well after that D-Day, which was my fourth. Dunno about any lessons he’s learned, but I sure learned mine after that.
This topic truly upset me. Reading all the horror stories and hearing the disturbing interference these APs run, was over the top. I know my 1st XH CHEATER’s AP would call and ask me where my husband was!! Then hang up( before Dday) I had no idea who this was. Then I hardly said 2 words to her after my divorce and treated her as” no one important”. Until 32 years later at my daughter’s wedding when I made the mistake of talking to her. She then regailed me of all the good things she and 1st XHcheater did for my kids. Never heard a” sorry about cheating ‘ while i was pregnant after 14 years together and he filing 3 weeks after said daughters delivery. 2nd XH cheater had too many pick me public dancers for anyone to call me. My kids were grown, he had used up all my usefulness to him and was bored. 2nd XH married a young foreign woman that he could mold within 8 weeks of that final divorce. He dated multicultural ladies to find the right fit and color. Porn helped him with his choices.
I have to say that these APs and my husband’s found each other and helped me get free from 2 abusive toxic -disese- carrying men. They shone the light of truth upon the paper cut out men and showed me how truly disgusting they were, when I pretended to be blind and deaf. The evidence was beyond real. I am so grateful that I saw this light and knew I was worth far more than to be one of Baskin Robin’s 31 flavor. I was more valuable than to be used as an object or vending machine to my #2 husband’s progressive porn addiction One of his harem. I was pure gold and wanted to stay with a rusted Tin can???.No way!!
I recall the story of Esther in the Bible. But don’t forget wife queen Vashti
(SP ?)who refused to pick-me -dance naked in front of the drunken King and his court of bleary eyed men. Esther got the crown but queen Vashti got her dignity and her self respect. She went down the hall away from the palace free. That’s me and I’m mighty regardless of low class APs. They can have both my tin cans. I’m free. But don’t contact me.EVER!
Hello peeps, thank God I never heard from either of them I basically walked out. (Except he sent me an internet bill – which I never paid, he didn’t want to interrupt our internet service for the kids and myself). LMFHO. after a 30 year relationship. I hope they enjoy their schmoopie FW life.
My 1st fuckwits AP was, apparently, terrified of me. Not sure what he told her. At this point not only do I not care, but outside of a séance, I can not ask. She passed during lockdown. After moving out of the family home, she and I never crossed paths. It was for the best. It helped that we were not in the same social or religious community’s.
OW did not contact me directly. But the morning after I kicked FW out of our house, I went to work with one hour’s sleep (this was a huge shock to me). He had refused to tell me OW’s name, I had no idea who she was, so when he left the house at 1 a.m. I looked on top of his desk and there was a letter from her, with some sappy love poem inside. When I got to my office I looked her up on LinkedIn. I didn’t know that it would send her a notification, and she called him immediately and he called me at work screaming at me at the top of his lungs that I was harassing poor OW and violating her privacy. Never mind that he’d been fucking her for at least a year and deceiving me, and she had come inside my HOUSE to do so while I was at work. I just wanted to know who the fuck she was. But I’m sure he’d told her all about what a horrible person I was. This was 10 years ago and I’m at meh but when I revisit some of these details, it’s clear these people are insane and delusional.
On D-day, my then husband used vague job description of his howorker and just said that she was married with 3 kids. I looked at his public profile on Facebook to figure out who she was. About a few weeks after I filed for divorce, I learned from my young kids that she had stayed the night at dad’s house while he had the kids for the weekend. I’m not on Facebook, so I found her on LinkedIn and sent a very generic message along the lines of since you’ve met my husband and my children, I’d figure I’d introduce myself. She never replied but went whining to my husband that I contacted her and he quickly scolded me over the phone to not contact her and he was the one who initiated everything. So they could carry out an affair for years but how dare I send her a message on LinkedIn!
This is an absolutely believable story. If you’ve never experienced it you wouldn’t believe that your spouse – the person who is supposed to be loyal to you – can transfer that loyalty to someone else while still married to you. Basically, if you just swap the roles (so that AP is the spouse and you are the interloper) then it all makes more sense. Your XH’s actions would be totally appropriate and understandable if you were the bunny-boiler AP who was stalking his poor wife on LinkedIn; too bad reality was actually the opposite.
I’ve never spoken to the schmoopie or even seen what she looks like and I have no desire to do so. She is irrelevant to my life. My sister was very surprised I never looked to see what she looked like online. FW was in a high profile second career job, there was plenty of her online with him displayed that I knew existed. Nope, I never did waste a second of my time looking.
Sounds like she was a bit fearful of me though and FW kept her name buried from me for an exceptionally long period of time. I surmised it was by her own request.
I guess he told her I was crazy and would come after her and she feared retaliation of some sort from me. 🤷♀️
She’s not worth that level of my effort.
I by chance stumbled onto her work email once before the divorce when I knew he was leaving me for her. I came really really close to emailing her at that time.
I think I would have warned her about him( professional serial cheater who was going to screw her over as badly as he did multiple other women for decades)
I’m glad I didn’t bother. What I hear from my kids now is that she is even worse human being than their father is, and that is saying a great deal. She has a son the age of my youngest and my kids have seen interactions and observed her as a really awful mother. Happy for them both they found one another, keeps that level of toxicity away from other potential victims out there.
I’ve been saying this – water seeks and finds its own level. That’s what happened with these two. A match made in Hell.
I have never met or spoken to AP in person. However, she DID leave a weird message on my answering machine about 3 months after FW moved out (5 months after I filed for divorce). It was early on a week-day morning (my son was getting ready for school). It was the day after FW’s birthday (which I had ignored). The message (which played aloud at 7:30 AM on my old-school answering machine) was AP pretending that she was calling FW’s phone but apparently “accidentally” called the home land-line number of her affair partner’s (FW’s) WIFE. So she proceeds to tell FW (as she drives to work) to grab the mail out of her mailbox before he leaves- or something like that. The two things that she was trying to get across to me were “i OWN a house” and “FW spent the night here last night”. She hung up and that was the last I heard of her. I was pissed because my youngest son was just MINUTES away from having to hear it (he had just left for the bus maybe a minute before she called). He knew NOTHING about her or the affair and his father had just moved out a couple months ago so he didn’t also need to deal with a crazy AP. Fortunately he didn’t hear anything and I erased the message off the machine and shook my head about it for a while. It was several months before I used that information to get some leverage in the divorce. I don’t think FW had any idea she called our house so it caught him off guard. AP never called again and I still have never met her in person and hope it stays that way (FW hasn’t brought her to any school events). The timing was really weird because I had already filed, I knew about her, and FW had finally moved out- it was not in any way a surprise to me that he would be living with her. I guess she was looking for kibbles from me, but I never responded. This was all about 4 years ago and I’ve heard nothing since.
33 years younger Howorker said he told me how you two were fighting all the time. Yes, because he was lying all the time.
She said how you didn’t sleep together, I laughed and called him out in front of the psycho
She couldn’t wait to tell how he had her fly down to Costa Rica vacation home, I called him into the room and said tell her who owns the CR condo? He hems and haws then says We do. Yeah she was starting to realize he’s a liar. They deserve each other
ExgfOW never contacted me but she had no need to do so. No children of our 26 year relationship which made ‘no contact’ very easy. The ex’s ‘feedback’ on how horrible I was as he left – ‘I can’t think of anything I like about you’ – also helped. ExgfOW would have been terrified of the ex’s ‘displeasure’ if she had contacted me and he had found out. That man could sulk and brood for England. The ex was shame on legs masked by fake arrogance. They got what they wanted. I divorced him quickly, got the financials sorted, and moved on to a peaceful, if sometimes lonely, single life. I made a deliberate decision to deprive them of their ‘rekindling of lost love’ drama by playing no part in it. They looked like immature fools and good luck to them. Without knowing anything about them now, whether they are still together or not, I suspect that, third time round, the rekindling is not burning quite as fiercely! As others have said, water finds its level, and together they are harming only themselves (and her young adult kids, I suppose, but that’s not my problem).
If exgfOW had contacted me, I would have given her zero ammunition (if it feels good, don’t do it principle). Life does not have to be one drama after another. That’s my superpower, walking away from the chaotic with my head held high.
Yep, I have to agree that I didn’t give them any kibbles once he left. I got accused of calling the whore which I never did. Heck I didn’t even call him unless I had to for D purposes, and for the year we were separated that was maybe 3 or 4 times.
I did let him come back, and kicked him out after less than a week. But he called me, I didn’t call him.
From what my son and daughter in law told me years later, they created their own chaos. I don’t know maybe that was the life he loved, and honestly I couldn’t do constant chaos. And frankly he didn’t seem like that guy either.
I do wish I had access to someone like CL at the time (she was likely in grade school at that time). I did pretty good, just by using my Dads advice; but there are a couple things I would have done better for me.
Susie, I reckon that, even with CL in our corner, we all think that we could have looked after ourselves better.
Mine got into wasband’s phone, stole my number and sent me texts at 2:00am telling me to move on. That we weren’t happy. That sometimes it’s hard but doesn’t work out. And that’s ok. That she went through it with her ex but they are better off now.
The idea that “we’re all better off now” is meant to erase the “crime.” Cousin clichés include:
*all’s well that ends well
*the ends justify the means
*everything happens for a reason
These sounds good and even give comfort to many, but I have a problem with them.
Even if we end up in a happier place, that doesn’t excuse the abuse.
Let’s say a drunk driver crashes into your car and lands you in the hospital with a body of broken bones. The docs need to do a battery of tests, including an MRI that reveals a cancer that benefits from early detection.
Some might say, “Good thing that drunk driver almost killed you.”
Ok. Sure. That was an unintended benefit. But does it really justify the harm?
Also, it ignores the other harm done. For instance, what if the victim of the car crash is haunted by flashbacks and can no longer drive?
Cheating inflicts psychic pain. Others can’t see it. And there’s no MRI that can detect it. But it’s there. And it can hurt like hell, even IF you move on and gain a life.
TL;DR: I don’t agree that the ends justify the means, but I can’t explain why in a coherent way. Thoughts? Any philosophers out there?
‘(We)(You) are holding each other back’ (delete as appropriate). That gem came from the ex and a couple of other people. Often accompanied by ‘move on’.
I’ve talked to my therapist about this kind of statement because my response is immediately to feel towering rage of Hulk-like proportions at the person who has made it. Whilst reminding me not to ‘untangle the skein’, my therapist also says that platitudes like these serve the speaker not the listener. They are intended to shut down protest in a dismissive way. All of these subjective statements are pronounced by the speaker, usually with finality, as objective fact. The listener understands at a conscious or unconscious level that there’s no point in arguing with the speaker that, say, ‘the end doesn’t justify the means because …’ The listener therefore shuts down and the speaker nibbles contentedly on the kibble of having the ‘last word’.
Great analogy.
Another one they love is; “It was all for the best.”
“everything happens for a reason”
I do think this one is true. Lightening strikes a house and burns it down, the reason is clear; but it doesn’t make the result good.
Affairs/adultery starts because of selfish people deciding their desires are above the well being of anyone else. Doesn’t make it a good thing.
Nothing justifies adultery against a spouse, and when they survive and live a good life it is not because of what the perp did, but what the spouse did to rebuild their life. The good life the spouse builds is not the reason for the adultery. The reason remains perfidy committed by a cheater and their accomplice.
I agree. This is likely why I’m having trouble not being angry still. I’m moved on and in a loving relationship but I’m still angry at my wasband.
For me it all goes back to agency being stolen from us. Stolen from us by lies and deceit. That is hard to deal with, and I do think scars remain.
I’m late to this party and I’m neither the c
Chump, FW or Schmoopie on this one, but here is what one Schmoopie had to say:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/thought-could-keep-affair-secret-2139528#
Poor Patricia. Betrayed by pretty much everyone and then ate the shit sandwich buffet put out for her.
The one that sticks out to me most-
“I fucked him on your couch!”
This was during the first pick-me dance era, after D-Day 1, early on in our relationship. Because I’m a fool, or was, I played pick me. I responded with something like “You mean my couch? That I gave him? Before I moved into his apartment? Where I live?”
She was wounded by that one, very wounded, but I know FW was rolling in the kibbles that night. Other highlights were her saying FW said I wasn’t good at sex (he would say that to me as well, but as far as she was concerned, I was still chosen – I was the one living with him) and that I wasn’t even cute. I made FW block her.
Later that night, she forced her way into our apartment (rang the doorbell and then hid around the corner, pushing past me when I opened the door) and physically assaulted us both. FW had to drag her out of the house.
I assumed, after the assault, FW would never contact her again. He did. And then picked up the cheating again (or maybe he continued it the entire time).
FWs are not worth your time, and willing APs are bad people.