Tired of Being Cheater’s Conspirator Friend
Her best friend is a cheater with a messy love life and she’s sick of keeping her secrets. What to do?
***
Greetings Chump Lady,
I have been reading your column for several years. So, I know the lingo and I know the stories.
I am not dealing with a Fuckwit of my own, just a fuckwit BFF.
She broke up her marriage to a really nice guy for a hot younger guy and hot sex. They had 2 children together. That ended in a restraining order.
Then, she met a guy online after a few different guys, and within 2 months had moved in. She was still seeing her friend-with-benefits. Then she decided that he “might be the one“. And was faithful-ish.
Early on he started being verbally abusive. That transpired into some physical abuse. Which gave her the perfect excuse to look for someone else and start a new relationship emotionally with her (their) neighbor. She changed his name in her phone and lied about where she was and got to go have dinners with Friendly Neighbor while playing hide-and-seek with her live-in Bozo. It was all “ok” because she was “stuck” with her abuser. Ok, well until they were evicted for all the late night shouting and calls to police.
More drama with cheater friend…
She has continued with Friendly Neighbor, and claims it is Twu Wuv except he has extreme ED, and cannot have intercourse. (He is trying with creams and viagra but it’s a sad soft sausage). This guy is really nice, and really wonderful to her, but no intercourse is possible. She wants to stay with him, except now there is Friendly NEW Neighbor. And the sex is super hot, she has said. She’s obsessed with Friendly NEW neighbor.
I have given her boundaries that I don’t want to hear about her affairs. She has continued to pressure me into being her co-conspirator in her unauthorized throuple. Friendly New knows about Friendly First, but not the other way around.
I gave in to her pressure to allow her to gush on and on about her throuple and “what a great problem to have.”
“Why don’t you let ED man go, why keep him dangling?” I asked her. She says she does it for security and because she “doesn’t want to be alone”.
I don’t feel good about it and thoughts creep in that I should blow the whistle.
What say you?
Conspiracy Sucks
***
Dear Conspiracy Sucks
I’m guessing you were expecting me to drag your cheater friend for her flamboyantly dysfunctional life. We’ll get there in a moment. But first, ask yourself, why do you consider this irresponsible, transactional, shitty mother to be your BFF?
What could possibly outweigh her lousy character?
Your shared history? A collective love of vintage lunch boxes? Her shiny hair? What do you see in this person?
And you cannot set the baseline at she’s not shitty to you, personally. Because she is. She’s involving you her drama and expects you to keep her secrets. That’s a lot of emotional weight to carry. AND FOR WHAT?
Other than a recitation of this woman’s questionable life choices, you neglected to mention what kind of friend she’s been. How does she have any bandwidth for friendship at all?
The problem isn’t that your friend is a cheater, it’s that you keep this person as a friend.
That’s on you. Your BFF is going to invite chaos into her life whether it’s this neighbor or the next rando. You’ve presented me with a false set of choices:
- Keep your friend’s secrets, OR
- Tell the First Neighbor about the affair with the Second Neighbor.
I reject this. Let’s start with the neighborhood fucktangle. Friendly limp-dick neighbor #1 knowingly involved himself with a woman who had a live-in boyfriend. He signed up for this dumpster fire. I know he thought he was rescuing a poor damsel from her abusive live-in dragon, so this is a painful lesson he’ll have to learn on his own: Healthy love interests don’t self-medicate with their neighbors. The knight-in-shining-armor schtick ends with him being used.
So, we’re going to leave that to implode on its own. Next dilemma…
You should not keep your cheater friend’s secrets.
Which you will accomplish by not having this person as a friend. She cannot confide in you if you aren’t available.
But, but! They can just be friends without discussing the rotating dick buffet!
How’d those boundaries work out?
I have given her boundaries that I don’t want to hear about her affairs. She has continued to pressure me into being her co-conspirator in her unauthorized throuple.
Yeah, not well. She’s made it obvious from partner 1 to 17 that your conspiracy in her complicated love rhombus is essential. So, have a boundary with yourself and say no.
Besides which, if someone is doing something that goes against your values, is it enough to just not want to hear about it?
Look, I know you go to Klan meetings and burn crosses, but I really don’t want the particulars.
WHY ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH A WHITE SUPREMACIST?
Such an extreme example, Tracy.
Is it?
Gutlessness is an epidemic.
Far too many people appease and accommodate awful people, which gives awful people license to KEEP BEING AWFUL. Look, your friend might continue to suck, but what’s more likely to give her a wake-up call? Your continued silence, or your absence? Enforce a meaningful consequence. Deprive her of your participation in her shittiness.
Oh, but that would be uncomfortable. Awkward even!
Because carrying her secrets isn’t uncomfortable and awkward? Find your spine!
You lost me when this woman had two small kids and moved in with her loser boyfriend within 8 weeks. It’s one thing to screw up your own life, but your BFF is inflicting these creepy men on her KIDS. I’m not sure how much you can do about that (is hot young boyfriend in the parenting picture?) But you can levy a consequence by refusing to go along with her choices.
“BFF, I can’t stand by and watch you introduce another FW to the kids. I’m out.”
The myth of the middle ground.
You’re probably thinking this is very black and white of me and life is full of moral nuances. Sure, you don’t personally approve of cheating, but shunning is so extreme. And doesn’t your BFF need you to talk some self into her?
That’s your own delusion, that you’re the Fuckwit Whisperer.
And who wants that job anyway? The problem with holding your nose and keeping someone awful in your life anyway (besides the end of democracy), is that it’s inauthentic at best, and dangerous at worst. Sure, you can feel superior as she careens from one FW to the next, but is that the solid basis of a friendship? More likely, this person will turn on you. If everyone else is of use, what makes you think you’re exempt? Look at how she treats her intimates, hell, her own children?
You think you’re special?
You’re not.
The letter writer appears to be 44 going on 14 years old.
The gift of her letter to us chumps is that she is actually a version of all the apologists who surrounded our FWs. The yuck of the moral uncertainty, the exploitation of trust and friendship, the teenage drama are all requirements to stay in FWs’ lives.
Somehow this makes me feel better.
Spot on with this. When I stopped accommodating awful people, I “lost” a lot of “friends.” But you know what? They weren’t actually much of a loss. And I opened up space in my life for better people, who were worthy of real investment and reciprocal givers. I’m much happier now.
Absolutely
I’m not generally that into Taoism because some interpretations of ancient spiritual tenets can be victim-blaming by default (“we-wei,” for instance– harmony through passive acceptance of the natural order). But there are few Taoist concepts and expressions I like, such as “If you want the universe to fill your rice bowl, clean it out” and “Never rob people (presumably functional adult people) of their consequences.”
My FW told three of our friends about a tiny portion of his cheating. Logically I know that they are both closer to him and my FW put them in a difficult situation, but I can’t help but feel betrayed and resentful toward the friends. Like they were co-conspirators. Despite them being otherwise likable and what I thought was “good” people, I’m not sure I’ll ever really trust two of them or like them in the way I used to ever again. The third had the where-with-all to respond to FW with “dude, that’s your business and off the table with me. I can’t be here for you with this.” I kinda feel even more respect for this third friend than I did before I found out that he knew about FW’s “one” prostitute experience (it was dozens, not one). You might think you are being a supportive friend, but you’re just allowing her to use you too. She’s using you as a sounding board and a way to be affirmed because you are listening. My FW said that our 3rd friend’s response was jarring and needed – didn’t stop him mind you, but FW appreciated being put in his place when 3rd friend put up boundaries.
Third friend is a treasure!
Yeah, what is the payoff for being friends with one of these people? What makes it so worth it? I think of all my ex’s friends who listened to him smear me and then smiled at my face. Some of the things he said about me were extremely personal, mostly made up but if they had been real, they were extremely personal things he shouldn’t have been sharing about me. Did it make them uncomfortable ever? If so, why did they continue with him? What is the payoff? What was so great about him that it made his abuse of me tolerable to watch?
Oh, it’s because they thought they were special, just like this letter writer. She thinks her BFF wouldn’t f*ck her over but she would. The second it would benefit her, she would destroy her life. Hell, she’d do it if it sounded like a fun afternoon. They all think they’re so special. LOL I remember the “friend” who said to me, “Just because he lies to you, that doesn’t mean he would lie to ME!” I heard she was so mad when she found out he was a pedo, she actually unfriended him on facebook even! She didn’t instruct her teenage daughter to unfriend him or anything because it isn’t about actually giving a sh*t about him harming children, it was just about realizing she wasn’t actually special. I think people who stay friends with these abusers want to be abusers, they’re just too cowardly to do it themselves. They’re just as shitty but they don’t have the balls to act on their shitty desires.
Found out the hard way they’re typically also narcissistic or shitty in their own way. One such woman is an incorrigible gossip in a miserable marriage and selfish but hides it with good impression management. She chose FW over me and kids but I see now because selfish shits stick together
My FW loved gossip. What dude loves to gossip? I got tired of it and started calling him out on it. They gossip about their own spouse share intimate details, because they love it. Its exciting, the chaos, the drama. THE POWER!!!!!
They cant feel emotions like normal people.
It you feel forced to be a co-conspirator, sounds like you have met and run into the Friendly Neighbors.
Would you keep silent if someone was stealing their cars? Or setting their apartments on fire? Based on friend’s history, she’ll keep cheating.
A bigger concern is the two young children. Was the restraining order against cheater mom, or their dad? And when she moved in with hot stud after 8 weeks, did she move the kids in with her? If they witnessed domestic violence, in my state that’s legally considered child abuse, even if they weren’t the targets. Maybe you should inform their dad and Child Protective Services. The fights, verbal and physical, were enough to result in police intervention and eviction. And cheating mom’s lack of boundaries and discretion means her kids are vulnerable to pedophile predators who seek out single moms. Maybe neighbor #1 is not so friendly. You know he’s not turned on by mom.
Even if you remain friends because she provides something positive to you–job references, shared childhood memories, a joint social circle– you’re selling your soul and integrity to be best friends with a person who lacks both. You said you’re BFFs. Do you really want to be stuck with this for the rest of your life? Tracy’s advice to “Lose a cheater, gain a life,” can apply to you, too.
As much as I can’t stand cheaters and feel no sympathy for irresponsible parents, the one situation where I’d never rat the latter out is if the so-called chump or coparent was a known batterer.
It’s an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation to help a batterer gain full custody or warn them they’ve been chumped since 20% of deaths related to domestic homicide are “corollary” victims — meaning bystanders killed when an abuser kills an intimate partner or former intimate partner– and a terrifying 88.9% of these corollary victims are children. That risk goes up even higher if the children are not the biological children of the abuser. That doesn’t even account for the number of children who aren’t killed but are forced to witness these killings.
Unfortunately FW dynamics like this can come up periodically in DV situations since battered women have a slightly higher rate of “monkey branching” in abusive relationships if just to have a body guard on hand during their terrifying escapes. Though the vast majority of these victims would likely never cheat on a nonabusive relationship since there are no traits that distinguish battering victims from the general population, that means that at least a small percentage of these monkey branching victims are genuine FWs regardless of whether they’re being victimized or not.
Anyway, this particular situation is complicated by the fact that the FW in question was a cheater before she was battered. It makes it a bit more ironic for her to have landed with a subsequent abuser after leaving the first but that does nothing to allay the doubled risks to her children. If someone rats her out to the current abusive chump, the latter may kill the children along with her. If someone tries to help batterer bio-dad get custody, even if he isn’t still harboring psycho rage towards his ex, batterers are many fold more likely to severely abuse or kill their own children.
It’s basically where angels fear to tread because there’s no good solution unless the state somehow steps in and gives custody of the children to safer and more responsible adults. But even then that’s not guaranteed since children are 5 fold more likely to be killed by foster parents than even the worst bio parents and 8 fold more likely to be sexually abused in state care.
It’s sad and awful that the only way to really solve this conundrum is 1) automatically and permanently forfeit custody for all intimate partner abusers so that child custody does not revert to them in the case the victim parent turns out to be a neglectful or irresponsible dud and 2) radically overhaul the child welfare apparatus, including getting rid of privatized adoption and foster care which incentivizes child removal for profit and measurably makes the system more callous towards the welfare of children in state care.
Very good points. And that’s why I asked who got the restraining order. LW wrote that, “She broke up her marriage to a really nice guy for a hot younger guy and hot sex. They had 2 children together. That ended in a restraining order.” It’s not clear if the restraining order was against her or him.
Unfortunately, bad people subject decent people to legal abuse, and even knowing who got the restraining order doesn’t necessarily clarify who was violent or abusive.
You also have some good points. Because men commit an estimated 96.8% of domestic homicides and 74.something % of female victims of domestic murder were killed by a male partner, it’s easy to assume the restraining order was against the hot young bangboi. This might especially true since Mr. Bangboi is clearly a “mate poacher” who, according to other research, tend to have very high rates of psychopathy. But then so do cheaters so I would imagine that she-FWs have both higher tendencies of committing aggression against partners than average women and possibly higher rates of falsely accusing partners of abuse. We’ve certainly heard the stories here of male chumps being falsely accused of DV by cheating wives.
All the same, it’s important to point out that false accusations of rape and DV by women are incredibly rare but blameshifting by perpetrators is not. A huge percentage of domestic abusers like to play victim to their own victims. So if any category of women were candidates to fabricate charges, I think it would be she-FWs or poachers. So even if it’s still more likely the guy was the aggressor in the OP’s story, it’s not absolutely guaranteed.
By the way, as a flaming feminist, I probably would have found it impossible to believe that any woman would fabricate stories of abuse if I hadn’t seen it happen myself three times. In my very harassment-laden industry in which 99.9999% of allegations are true yet only .001% ever got reported prior to #MeToo, I saw three different women fabricate charges against men. Very interesting that all three women were serial mate-poacher/cheaters. They were also all chronic backstabbers of other women and decidedly not feminists.
“The problem with holding your nose and keeping someone awful in your life anyway (besides the end of democracy), is that it’s inauthentic at best, and dangerous at worst.”
AMEN!
I confess that I am stunned over here. You’re standing by while her kids witness their mother get abused? Do I have that right? Even if he abuses her while they’re not there, she is still bringing massive upheaval and trauma to their lives, and you — an adult — are doing …. nothing about it? And you consider her your best friend, still?
Sorry, you’re gonna get flamed here, but try to absorb the feedback constructively. It’s time to end this “friendship.” What is acceptable to you?
Also ALL boundaries are internal boundaries. ALL.
FYI..I wondered so just copied here. My own boundaries were non existing so I’ve been working on all these post Coercive abuse/ physical.. I needed all these, but you are correct. It starts inside and spreads outside.
Internal Boundaries:
These are the limits we set for ourselves based on our values, morals, capacity, and identity. They guide our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
External Boundaries:
These are the limits we set in our interactions with others, defining how we want to be treated and what we’re willing to accept or tolerate from them.
Physical Boundaries:
These can be both internal and external. For example, our personal space is an internal physical boundary, while the fence surrounding our property is an external one.
I have always been astonished at people who have “friends” like this. What is the attraction? Is it some kind of contact high from being a witness to the drama?
Admittedly, I am an introvert and only have so much bandwidth for other people. But if I get a hint of someone acting in immoral ways, I distance myself from them immediately. I just can’t deal with bad people. I know they will turn on me eventually.
I’m not that astonished because creeps tend to mirror, love-bomb and foster dependency. Studies of domestic abusers in prison settings even find that perpetrators tend to channel far more psychic energy into “image management” (being charming, appealing, etc.) than average.
So I can imagine that some people who are not bad in any sense may be particularly vulnerable to this kind of campaigning due to personal vulnerabilities– for instance, anyone susceptible to discrimination like the disabled, people who’ve experienced trauma (most women), minorities or the elderly and infirm may be more vulnerable to charm offensives or frog-boiling fostering of dependency in friendship.
What makes the think the OP in this situation falls into the latter “vulnerable/duped/manipulated” category is that she’s not making excuses for the cheating pal. There are no sad sausage alibis about childhood suffering or condemnation of victims (like the first decent husband), etc., which you would see with flying monkeys who may covertly identify with a perpetrator’s aggression but just not have the balls to act out on the same level.
I ditched two childhood women friends – at different times – due to their shitty behaviour like this. Cheating with our other friend’s husbands/boyfriends, other women’s husbands/boyfriends on & on…. I finally had to decide what my values were & what type of people I wanted in my orbit. My childhood besties were not it.
I worry about the kids in this one. Where are they? Are they safe? What will be done for them to role model better, less impulsive behaviors?
Where I am getting stuck otherwise is that this individual that is calling themselves your friend is pretty wholesale ignoring and violating your boundaries. It sounds like you have made it clear that you don’t want to be entangled in her…whatever the hell she is doing. And that she continues to entangle you in it anyway.
I’m happy that she feels safe with you and you are her stability and all…but that’s downright disrespectful of her to keep doing that to you when you have made it clear that you are not OK with that. She clearly does not respect the boundaries of…pretty much anybody right now. She has already demonstrated herself to be pretty ethnically compromised.
Frankly, in your position I’d be very anxious about when it’s time for her to have a blow-out with and betray YOU. These behaviors do not occur in a vacuum. “Anybody that would cheat WITH you would cheat ON you.” If she needs her life to be exciting and dramatic like it sounds like she does…the BFF blowout makes just as good of a season finale as any.
And next question, as our fearless leader here put it-do you really want to be the one doing damage control WHEN this situation explodes? The variables I am hearing are:
-Abusive boyfriend
-Neighbor 1(aware of abusive boyfriend)
-Other Neighbor(aware of everything)
-(The Hidden Quantity) anybody else that she has on the tether that she isn’t being forthcoming about-this includes other people that she has jilted, to say NOTHING of likely entire constellation of Chumps created out of all of this.
Do you really want to be there for THAT reckoning? I understand loving people as friends and being there with them through life’s foibles. That being said-you have to take care of yourself. I personally have a lot more difficulties helping people pick up the pieces when their answer to “explosive situation” is “apply collection of gasoline soaked rags and napalm.”
TLDR-I think you need to put some safe distance between you and this person-if nothing else until she clues in on how to be more respectful of your and your boundaries. If she wants to go down in flames…there’s a great Def Leppard song about that, but you don’t have to be taken down with her.
Have a Mighty Monday!
Good point about the risk of playing with someone who’s playing with fire, particularly in situations related to domestic violence where a whopping 20% of related homicides involved individuals who were not the intimate partner themselves but friends, neighbors, family members or first responders who got caught in the line of fire or were attacked for attempting to intervene. In fact, the calls that police dread most because they involve the highest line of duty deaths are “domestics.”
Sadly, there is such a thing as an “abuser/victim hybrid.” Nowhere is it written that an abuser can’t be abused by a bigger abuser or outsharked by a bigger shark. To me this doesn’t justify the abuse in any sense since I don’t even think it’s right to hire violent sociopaths to guard convicted murderers. But the fact that someone is an abuser/victim hybrid can make them unsafe to help or advocate for.
For instance, considering my past work with survivors and everything I write about domestic abuse, it might seem surprising that I ended a friendship with a survivor of abuse because, after asking me to watch her kids for an afternoon, this woman wanted to send her violent ex husband to my house to pick up her children two weeks after he’d threatened to shoot her.
Like, yeah, no, you’re not sending an armed batterer in the throes of post-separation abuse to my house and adding me and my children to his supplemental target list. I didn’t say as much to her but simply explained that I’d been proverbially caught in the crossfire before as the perceived supporter of an abuse survivor and knew that abusers can sometimes threaten perceived supporters as a means of controlling primary victims. I suggested that, for her own sake, she might think twice about sharing the names and addresses of her supporters to this freak.
But, as low-key as I was about it, she didn’t take my refusal well. In truth, she was the one who ended the friendship but I fully expected it when I refused her request because, just prior to this, she’d already bristled when I’d questioned her decision to stop the court from terminating her ex’s parental rights based on the gun threat because she liked having free weekends while her ex coparented so that she could go on dates (who she dated is another saga).
Again, I didn’t put it this brusquely but reminded her she had a good community of local friends who could help afford her a bit of free time if she wanted to cut the ex out of the parenting picture for her own and her children’s safety. But for some reason she found this deeply offensive.
At the time, it seemed baffling to me that she would refuse the court’s silver platter bid to end the ex’s parental rights, not only considering this guy’s violent history and ongoing threats but the fact he was a dangerously irresponsible parent, once drunkenly sleeping through the start of a fire in his neighbor’s apartment while his children were staying with him and also losing his children at the beach several times. Furthermore, her oldest child was afraid of the ex and the youngest was developing problems with aggression at school.
She would tell me all these things in the heat of the moment but, in the next moment, the spackling would metastasize again like a tumor. I was patient with this waffling to a point but once she not only put me and mine in the line of fire but became angry that I wouldn’t agree, that was it.
If I was tempted to feel bad about withdrawing support from this woman, it didn’t last long because she bitched about me to her local posse and I suddenly found myself even more isolated in that community at a moment when one of my children was going through harrowing health issues.
That was how I learned that there was a little cluster of local single mothers with creepy exes who related to this woman’s choices and who saw my refusal to put myself and my children at risk to normalize “friendly coparenting” with battering former husbands as egregious. But it actually wasn’t my first realization that some survivors are stupid and dangerous in their own rights because of the degree to which they’ve internalized abuse. When I’d worked in advocacy, we’d encountered people we just couldn’t safely help because survivors aren’t a monolith.
Statistically, there’s no common denominator predicting who will or won’t become a victim of relationship abuse. Not by background, economics, psychology, etc. It can literally happen to anyone (though, statistically, mostly women) and, since a certain proportion of human beings are jerks, that same proportion of jerks will be represented among victims of domestic abuse. Again, this still doesn’t justify abuse. But, aside from making people like this less safe to advocate for, it can ironically predict whether the individual will ever be involved in effective activism against domestic abuse that could help correct the very conditions under which victims are pressured and obligated to play the friendly coparenting game with dangerous abusers (such as stiffer criminal penalties for abusers, automatic loss of custody and far better financial supports for survivors not to mention equal pay and employment for women in general and childcare/daycare stipends).
In fact, I’ve noticed that women like this tend to get pissy and testy if you talk about political solutions too much or too passionately. At some point they’ll accuse you of “hating men” or some other psychobabble nonsense which is kind of a dead giveaway that, in their twisted world views, all men are abusers and they’ve adapted their lives to this perspective. On the one hand it’s sad but on the other hand it’s part of the problem. People like this really don’t want to identify as feminists because they perceive men in general don’t like it and they don’t want to disadvantage themselves in the eternal pickme dance competition.
I’m not saying that this is why women like this end up getting abused in the first place. I’m also not saying lack of political involvement itself is necessarily a mark that someone is an abuser/victim hybrid since not everyone has the time, energy or bandwidth to get involved. For the same reason, I don’t think the mark of abuser/victim hybrid is merely being in denial about the seriousness of abuse, spacking abuse or simply being in the grips of captor bonding/Stockholm syndrome. Very decent people will do this when terrorized and frog boiled for enough time. But the ultimate mark of an abuser/victim hybrid is when someone become angry and vituperative if anyone even gently and respectfully tries to help loosen that bond. I don’t mean foisting directives at victims but just countering the minimization, peeling back a bit of spackle, pointing out the actual danger, giving abuse a historical and political perspective or suggesting practical means of getting ducks in order. If they lash out at anyone for daring to even bring up these things, it’s a cue to walk away and spare your help and support for the countless survivors who would embrace this help or at least not attack anyone for offering it.
Back to this woman’s post-divorce dating saga, I learned later that she and at least one of her single mom posse friends had histories of consorting with married men. That’s probably another mark of an abuser/victim hybrid– not being averse to victimizing other women by playing the poacher.
I agree. People like her need kibbles. You provide some for her empty bottomless soul. She will just keep sucking you dry. What does she contribute to your life? Youll find not much.
I’m curious what the benefits are to being friends with someone like this. She selfishly broke up an apparently happy home without any care of her children, she sounds like she lives a chaotic life in general…what do you have in common with her? You claim you disagree with her actions, but as they say, your friends are a reflection of yourself. Your question to Chump Lady is about blowing the whistle on her? To whom exactly? The man with ED started having an affair with her already knowing he was the affair partner. This most recent man is aware he’s the affair partner. I’m curious why your question to Chump Lady isn’t “Why do I still want to be BFFs with her?”
Except for the reportedly decent first husband the OP’s friend cheated on, there don’t seem to be any genuine victims in the story other than the children who, at the very least, may be bystanders to all these shenanigans. But even that situation would be a catch 22 to intervene in since, if the serial cheater friend loses custody due to the latter’s unstable lifestyle and irresponsibility, will the kids be sent back to their biodad who was not only a mate-poacher but a domestic abuser?
It’s enough to make a stone weep.
The letter writer is simply “of use” for now to her awful cheater friend. Chumps aren’t the only people who FW use.
Good grief.
I can’t improve on or add to anything Chump Lady said. I can enthusiastically second, third, and fourth it.
A relationship of any kind can only be as healthy as the people in it, and this sounds very very sick to me.
And those children need a protector. Please get some help and be that person.
I speak as a person who gets help, lots of it, and have sought it out on a regular basis for almost forty years.
😪
This is so very profound Tracy CL, because this is the fairy tale I worked from with both my cheaters..THAT I was SPECIAL, that I could cure( with my undying love) every Emotional affair, I could cure disrespect and discarding by calling it a Bad mood day. That I could cure mental illness and bipolar extremes by holding hands and ” being there” for them when they were hurt or wounded. By listening unendingly to their sad sausage stories. By believing I was superior and stable and an anchor for chaos. That my love would stop abuse that was going on for years. That my faithfulness, loyalty to my marriage and my complete dedication would SHOW THEM the value of being calm and sober….and the importance of staying a FAMILY and the joys of stability. That I, me, I could hold back the tsunami of PAIN that was behind the heart of both my cheaters to take me down and out with deception and lies… This Savior complex was alive and well in ME and it almost destroyed me. Almost is the key word. My eyes are opened and now I see. Thank you CL. I was trapped and now I’m free. I did have choices and I am no longer a volunteer for abuse, I am a happy Chump taking my part in NO LONGER trying to save the world…and moving on to freedom.
Greetings, this is Conspiracy Sucks:
Firstly thank you for your kind-ish responses. There were a lot of questions and concerns for her children. See timeline.
Im still trying to figure out if me and Cheater BFF have some kind of trauma bond as I am in an abusive marriage. She can be very effusive and sweet and kind and non judgemental listening person. I must have liked the attention, Shes a classic love-bomber. I definitely hate the drama. I get a headache when she launches into things like that. Its a time suck and energy suck. Im also 2 years of hearing the pain and now things are good and its actually nice not to have all the ugliness all the time. Empathy fatigue.
“But first, ask yourself, why do you consider this irresponsible, transactional, shitty mother to be your BFF?”
~We are both sort of outcasts in the very small social circles we run in, in a small town, and I dont have kids, Im married but theres issues, and I generally have enjoyed her company in the past. Shes my “fun friend”.
“How does she have any bandwidth for friendship at all? ”
~Right now she admits to not having much time for me and she calls and texts way less too…which makes it easier to distance myself.
“You lost me when this woman had two small kids and moved in with her loser boyfriend within 8 weeks. ”
~ **** See timeline.
“The letter writer appears to be 44 going on 14 years old. ”
~ Thanks for that cheap shot, it is so helpful for building me up to exit this friendship. For the record I am 57. I am feeling vulnerable and the fear of losing a girlfriend is making me feel even worse.
***Timeline & Details:
Husband plus two children – 18 & 13 at the time of divorce to be with hot younger dude we can call Karl. 18 yo is in a home for autistic people. 13 yo is now 16 and Sane Dad has full Custody, Hot Karl, well he turned violent, restraining order ensued.
2 years ago, Bozo came along, and 2 months later they got a place together, in a beautiful seaside resort area. While her younger was with Sane Dad full time, they did their drama thing. They drank a lot, argued and things escalated repeatedly. I was her sympathetic ear. Part of me is just relieved not to be getting texts and calls about the abusiveness of Bozo.
So about 6 plus months ago, friendly neighbor #1 came in on the scene. Ive met this one. Hes nice. Dont want to meet the other one, and it will be weird if he actually becomes a relationship…
And Yeah, I get that she is dishonest and will be dishonest to me eventually, but there again, she loves me as her confidant that she attests “knows all her truths”…so theres that little mindfuch in there, when I bring it up.
There are things about her I love, but ultimately must break up…I guess I needed that validation.
I can relate. When I cleaned house of the horrible abusers (plural) in my life, I realized all my friends sucked too. It was scary at the time, but over a decade later, I am SO thankful I got rid of everyone. Believe me, I don’t say that lightly. It was terrifying at the time.
The advice I’d share with my scared younger self, and which I’ll share with you too, is think of cleaning house as an investment in your future self who will one day look back and thank you. I was so resistant back then but now, my old fear feels so laughable. I can’t believe I was clinging to such dramatic dumpster fire people who sucked me dry. Getting rid of those train wrecks gave me the time and energy to find much better friends who had their acts together.
(I got an update on one of those ex-friends this week — she’s now a conspiracy theorist and addicted to meth. All of our old friends cut her off shortly after I did, because she started stalking people. Very sad, but I shudder to think how my life would’ve turned out if I’d kept her around.)
I’m sorry to hear about your marriage and feel that got skipped over in your original letter. Are you safe? Do you need an exit plan? I’ll hold you in my thoughts today.
If you see my comments, I kind of guessed that, because you’re obviously intelligent, you probably fall into a category of people who are, through no fault of their own, especially vulnerable to the charm offensives of not-so-great people.
I was also preyed upon as an “outcast” in the small town I moved to because I thought it was a safer place to raise children compared to spending most of my life in crime-ridden big cities. When I first moved there, all kinds of weirdos tried to befriend me to leverage my “new kid on the block” and “new overwhelmed parent” status in the hopes I’d accept their (eventually revealed) unacceptable behavior.
I did end these liaisons but admit it was sometimes painful (particularly telling the daughter of the company board president of my employer that, no, I don’t want your functional heroin addict boyfriend in my house– especially after she so kindly filled my refrigerator with home-cooked, organic casseroles while I was in the hospital giving birth to my second child. Wail, mourn, ugh). When we’re isolated and hungering for friendship, it’s harder to reject people who appear supportive at first, particularly predatory people who specialize in charm and fostering dependency. I would recommend reading DARVO-coiner Prof. Jennifer Freyd’s Blind to Betrayal because she creates a kind of algorithm showing how very real individual vulnerabilities predict how easy we are to fuck with.
I also think it’s a learning curve to understand that cheating on innocent partners isn’t merely a minor idiosyncrasy but a global character problem, especially in the face of heavy cheater apologism in the media these days (Esther Perel et al).
But I think your chief vulnerability– the thing that makes you more susceptible (like the rest of us, frankly) to being manipulated is the fact that, as you say, you’re in an abusive marriage. As soon as I hear the word “abuse” I imagine the victim is bound up in some kind of barbed wire spiderweb of coercion and control that’s perfectly tailored to their individual vulnerabilities.
I hope you can draw some support from material on coercive control and, bottom line, understand that you’re not alone in feeling isolated and vulnerable. We’ve all been preyed on here.
I’m sorry you are still choosing to stay in an abusive marriage. I know it’s scary to make the call and end it. I don’t know if you have family who are supportive. But I do know one thing–you ARE capable of leaving this mess behind, and you deserve better. Is there a chance this one friendship is what’s keeping you stuck? Because one of the positive things about not having children is the fact that you can pick up and move away from the small town where you feel like an outcast. It’s really okay to leave the abuse. Life is much sweeter on the other side of divorce. It’s hard, but it’s possible to make friends in a new place.
I say this with kindness — you have a choice about your own abusive marriage. You have a CHOICE. There are resources out there that can help. https://www.thehotline.org/
You don’t have to hang on to shitty people — whether friend or spouse.
Conspiracy Sucks,
The only person who needs to give you permission to break this friendship off is yourself. From what you have said, it is clear that her values do not align with yours; allow yourself to drop the rope.
LFTT
You know what happened to me when I kept a BEST friend who cheated on her husband during their dating, engagement, and marriage? This friend of 35 years- since Kindergarten, HAD AN AFFAIR WITH MY HUSBAND OF 16 YEARS. Lesson learned.