UBT: Cheating Saved Their Marriage
The Universal Bullshit Translator just cannot with the “Cheating Saved Their Marriage” couple Matt and Charity Craig featured in People Magazine’s Real Life Love series. (Photo source: People Magazine.)
Seriously. It can’t. It’s Friday and the UBT just wants the weekend to start already. Not digest this unholy dump of misogyny. There isn’t enough Lebkuchen.
But, but! Half of Chump Nation sent this article to your inbox!
Cheating saved their marriage! ASPIRE TO A CHEATER! WIN HIM BACK! BLAME YOURSELF!
This crap makes me want to stick an icepick in my head. (Or maybe the editors at People magazine.) This is why I have a machine to do the dirty work. But even a patented bullshit machine made of titanium alloys has limits.
Yet. it. must. go. on.
Valentine’s Day 2013 marked Charity and Matt Craig’s first date after his affair during their marriage.
Because dating during marriage is Matt’s thing.
“It was awkward, but it was part of a healing process,” Matt, 41, tells PEOPLE. “You can’t expect things to go back to the way they were. And I didn’t want things to go back, and neither did she.”
Fucking strange was part of the healing process. It was awkward going on a date with the mother of my four children. You can’t expect to go back to the way things were — you need a social media presence, life coaching, and glossy wife appliance photos, Charity. You need to make pick me dancing your BRAND.
The Florida couple not only survived Matt’s affair in 2012, but Charity, 46, says it made their relationship stronger after she decided to work on herself.
Charity Craig is to blame for her husband’s wandering dick!
He was cheating, but Charity alone saved the marriage and MADE IT STRONGER by working on herself! Wandering dicks can only be tethered by chump self-improvement.
Speaking of self-improvement, Charity has a blog! Hire her as a coach and learn how you too can win a cheater and rebrand your shit sandwich as aspirational and profound.
Here’s Charity maniacally gripping a mug, in her most winsome “Matt, you’re so dreamy! I have all your albums” pick-me pose.
“It dawned on me he’s not my enemy,” Charity, now a marriage coach, adds. “We’re both just humans with deep wounds, and that’s where we started healing.”
I looked down the barrel at single parenthood with four children and it dawned on me I did not like my choices. Perhaps I could profit from this experience AND keep Matt from Schmoopie?
All I have to do is spew the party line of dual accountability. Gosh, we’re just humans with deep wounds, which one of us expresses by risking my health fucking others. Once I took responsibility for Matt’s unilateral and abusive decisions, that’s when I started healing!
Sharing advice for others who might find themselves in similar spots, she says getting hyper-focused on the “other woman” gets in the way of healing a relationship.
Yes, the Other Woman is not to blame. Stop being so retrograde and misogynistic. The wife is to blame.
Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum.
“Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum,” Charity says.
They happen in the back seats of cars in Walmart parking lots.
“Once you heal yourself and your marriage, 10,000 women can walk past my husband, and he’s not going to blink an eye because he’s not looking for an escape.”
The marriage makes Matt cheat. So we must be constantly vigilant that Matt is happy in the marriage (Charity is new and improved!) so he’s never looking for an escape… from the monogamous commitment that he agreed to with full agency.
Let’s ask a quack.
Dr. Talal H. Alsaleem, author of Infidelity: The Best Worst Thing that Could Happen to Your Marriage, and the founder of the Infidelity Counseling Center, agrees that infidelity can result from circumstances that generally have little to do with “the third party,” no matter which partner cheats.
Alsaleem, ripping off Anne Bercht’s My Husband’s Affair Became THE BEST Thing That Ever Happened to Me has a book to sell you on how cheating saves marriages too!
He points to three main factors that can result in infidelity: First, the person may have a personality disorder, sex addictions or past trauma. Second, environmental issues — such as having a stressful career — can increase the likelihood. But the most prevalent is how happy people are with their partner.
If you want to not fuck strange, the important thing to remember is never have a traumatic experience, feel stress, or be unhappy with your partner.
Charity, uh, by this calculus you should be fucking a lot of strange.
“It’s like having a heart attack. The trauma of infidelity forces the couple to look at those issues that led them to this point,” Alsaleem tells PEOPLE. “Either they address those issues in a healthy, successful way or realize this is a relationship they should have exited a long time ago.”
Yes, it’s the couple’s fault one of them made the unilateral decision to have a secret, double life.
While he says dealing with infidelity by either gender is essentially the same, traditionally women have carried more blame.
“There is a huge gender bias towards women when it comes to infidelity,” Alsaleem says.
Oh, like blaming women for their husband’s wandering dicks? Thank you for being an ally in the sisterhood, Alsaleem.
Ssshhh! Keep the secret!
He also cautions couples not to go public with their situation.
“It adds a layer of complications for couples later, especially if they decide to stay together,” Alsaleem says.
No accountability saves marriages! Hey chump, don’t tell family and friends. Stay isolated and improve yourself. We wouldn’t want this to be a bummer for the cheater.
The Craigs discovered well-meaning friends and family did not help the core problems in their marriage by wanting them to divorce and move on.
“They acted more hurt and betrayed than I did,” Charity says. “People hate seeing how broken and shattered you are.”
Imagine people caring if you’re broken and shattered. I think I’ll stick with Matt who doesn’t seem to give a shit.
Yet they both saw value in a relationship that spanned most of their lives. The two met at a St. Louis church youth group when Matt was 13 and Charity, then a college freshman, became a friend of his family.
Nothing weird about this. Move along…
Their feelings evolved after Matt invited her to his 18th birthday. They dated for about three years before getting married on Jan. 17, 2004.
“Anytime you get married, you’re taking a chance. Something tells you you don’t want to live without that person,” Matt remarks.
Aww. That’s a nice kibble, Matt. Strangely impersonal “that person,” but yes, marriage is a crap shoot.
Charity was a teacher, and Matt had tested his hand at a music career in Nashville before settling into a more secure job. They had four children in five years, beginning almost exactly two years after they were married.
Charity had the steady job. Matt was destined for greater things.
“We were in survival mode,” Charity remembers.
About eight years into the marriage, things seemed to be looking up. “It was the pivot point of our lives,” Charity continues. “Matt had gotten his dream job.”
The pay was good, but Matt points out that “it was also the most stress I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
I’m sorry, a dream job that supports his family is too hard for Matt.
He had a team of musicians and creatives and was in charge of mentoring and shepherding a flock of about 12,000 people.
Oh the poor sausage. However does he cope? #humblebrag #shepherdaflockofgroupies
It came with midnight texts from his boss, constant work and time away from home.
“He kept telling me, ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ but I didn’t listen,” Charity explains. “I wasn’t dealing with the toxic behavior behind the scenes.”
Charity didn’t listen, what with her full-time job and FOUR CHILDREN. Alas, only Matt suffers toxic behavior behind the scenes. Mmm. DARVO tastes delicious.
Matt needs a safe space or else.
Home stopped being a safe place for him because he couldn’t vent or talk about it, she says.
Matt needs a safe place… in the vacuum… of a vagina.
Matt says he can’t quite pinpoint the exact time he began sliding down a slippery slope with a woman he knew from his church duties, but he recalls how the affair started with group texts, and then individual texts.
Ride my slippery slope and let’s call it mentorship.
And there comes a time when you cross the line and then start rationalizing it,” he says. “But once you cross the line sexually, you think you have screwed up too bad to be a good husband, and you walk away.”
I am Matt and I talk in the Third Person.
Alsaleem says couples need to take time to process and assess the damage done to determine if they should take the path of healing together or separately.
Hi, I’m a quack with some banal advice to add. Heal! Separately or together! Buy my book!
Why was Matt cheating? TO SAVE HIS MARRIAGE.
Matt left for about six months before he and Charity decided to work it out. First Charity had worked on her own issues with a therapist, then both used therapy to sort through their issues. But mainly, they opened up and started talking about the whys.
“You want life to be perfect, but life is life and people are people,” he notes. “You are going to run into the same issues when you run from yourself.”
No one’s perfect! Life is life! People are people! God, Matt is so insightful. You can immediately understand why Charity wouldn’t want to lose this dreamboat. He’s clearly done a lot of work on himself to come up with this kind of top shelf introspection.
The affair has taken a backseat over the past decade, and they are at a comfortable and loving place in their now 20-year marriage.
“We talk about the affair in a more retrospective way now,” Matt says. “We’ve actually been married longer after the affair than before it.”
It’s been 20 years. We still talk about the affair. In fact, my wife has an entire business based on my infidelity. #backseat
Your Friday Challenge is to tell CN how cheating made your marriage stronger. (not)
Well it made my marriage strong. Not the FW marriage, but my almost 30 year marriage to my sweet now H. Turns out I never really had to change me, all I had to do was find a partners whose values/integrity matched mine.
Well, I guess when you’re rich and famous, you can afford the resources to play the 24/7 marriage police.
Really, though, I can barely get througg this drivel. It’s nauseating to me – “you aren’t enlightened enough to turn cheating into something POSITIVE” – ugh, ugh ugh ugh. May the Esther Perels of the world hit their pinky toes on the corners of walls for spreading these toxic positivity lies.
Hey, at least you got through it-I got the sour belches at reading all of that bullshit and had to stop about halfway.
And very agreed on the rich and famous part-I was too busy paying my FW’s bills while she was getting put on academic probation and not really contributing anything to actively police her and Schmoopie.
I couldn’t all in one go, though – I came back to it later. It’s that bad.
And ugh, I’m so sorry. While supporting your spouse is the right thing to do, the fact that she would take advantage of that… gross. Disgusting. Ew.
What! She wasn’t enough? She was lacking, that’s why he had to step out on her? She has to work on herself and make sure that she does and is whatever she has to do and be to prevent her husband from cheating? For the rest of her life? She has to make sure her husband has no need to find an “escape”? It’s alllllll up to her? She better work harder! She was at least partially responsible for his choice to “cross the line sexually”! It’s her fault tooooo! Unreal. Don’t go public? I can’t even.
Hey Charity, give some love (and respect) to yourself, why don’t you?
I don’t think she deserves respect. She turned her experience into a way to con other chumps for money. She’s awful.
Yes of course, and you missed one, his job stress was her fault too.
To be honest, she makes herself sound exhausting. Like that basement that never quite gets done. I think someone like this makes it a point of pride that she “stayed married” despite whatever happened because it’s part of her self image rather than any intrinsic value in the marriage. Very phony.
I don’t want to crap on her, because that’s what a lot of us did for however long, before we couldn’t anymore. Tried to fix things. I wish I had had the mightiness that some chumps display and cut out the fw immediately, but I had left my job to become a SAHM with a 5 month old and no real family support when I found out. I think in her heart of hearts charity knows if she let him go the dude (can’t remember his name and can’t be bothered looking) would ‘pick’ someone else from the flock to make the new long suffering wife, and her name would be but a distant memory within months. She knows her church wouldn’t support her, and so she’s parlayed what happened into this big ministry to stay in the loop through some kind of traumatized logic. So I don’t take as phony in a deceptive way, but very desparate.
That’s no excuse for her selling snake oil to other chumps. She’s entitled to lie to herself, but not to con other people. That’s where it becomes about greed, not desperation.
I have to crap on her not because she did this personally but because she’s pushing it to everyone else……for money. Also, I reread her story and she’s about 8 years older than him and met him when he was 13. I’m wondering if she’s dominated HIM all these years and maybe the affair (and I’m sure there will be more) is his way of breaking away from her control. It sounds like this has always been an unhealthy relationship to me.
Ick, ick, ick! She was 21 with a 13 year old? Ick!
Very phony and likely very fear driven. Whether she started out this caved in and doubtful about her ability to survive without a FW or became that way after years of frog-boiling putdowns, gesture warfare, unsettling vibes, lost sleep, subtle extortion, vague threats, blameshifting, crazy-baiting and general operant conditioning is probably moot at this point. Way to go, People Mag, celebrating a hostage situation.
A public show of humidity and humiliation
In my case, eX’s secret porn, co-worker and prostitute hobby destroyed my marriage. I just did not discover & understand that fact until decades later.
“with a woman he knew from his church duties,”
Kinda glossed over this part. A minister in a church who has an affair with a congregant is generally fired or at least pushed out the door. I wonder how much damage he did to the other woman and this church with his shenanigans?
Jesus cheaters are way too common.
It’s no different than a boss with a subordinate or a doctor with their patient. In fact, I’d probably compare it to the latter a bit more. What a gross breach of ethics.
Jesus cheaters, to me, are the worst. The VERY worst. Because the bar is set higher and they have responsibilities to other people beyond their marriage to set a good example and help them and so often they use this to gain power and abuse others. This guy’s gonna have another AP in his future, he probably has a box of them she doesn’t know about.
People like to go on about Jesus forgiving but….hey….he was JESUS….I”M NOT JESUS….I have lower expectations for myself. And Jesus told the woman taken in adultery (that the Pharisees were going to stone) to…”Go forth and sin no more.” And one thing he did NOT say to her, and no one makes this point….HE DID NOT TELL HER THAT HER SINS WERE FORGIVEN. He said he wasn’t going to condemn her (probably meaning he wasn’t going to stone her) but he DID NOT say her sins were forgiven, which I think he did (going on memory here) say to others in his ministry.
Forgiveness only goes so far especially when you know that the sins are a way of life.
Thank you and I love every word of this. My Jesus Cheater was always boasting about how even as a child, before he became a “Christian,” it offended him when people would take the Lord’s name in vain. He looked down on people who couldn’t control their tongues, but apparently his wanker got a free pass. The hypocrisy is astounding.
Thank you, k 🙂 I find that most people who declare themselves to be “Christian” or religious in general, don’t actually read or understand the Bible, or seek to. They’re just looking for a name to call themselves so they can place themselves within a community – hopefully above others, LOLOL!
I have noticed that very same thing. It’s the biggest problem I have with organized religion.
The majority of the comments on People’s page made my spirit soar…most were calling out this “stand by your man” grooming. How did cheating make my marriage stronger? I’m going to quote one of those awesome comments I read: “cheating made my marriage better by….ending it”. Boom.
Me too x2 Both times. They gave me so many STIs for years, devalued and i was of use. D days x2 made me run for the hills. No more Liars allowed in my life. Sadly, from my experience, many churches ( mine)sit beside cheaters, holding their hands, cheaters who say the right words, ” beg to save their jobs” cry they” want “their marriages,
bring flowers and chocolates pray beside you, eat humble pie and say they have been changed. They request rebaptism, do all the right things and make it all good with additional frosting for their ongoing cake. It’s likely a worthy act to avoid consequences, keep your kooshy job and the kids are a great front. I don’t blame the chumps, the tsunami is hard to push back.
Maybe these FWs find that conning the church leadership is even more exciting than deceptions run during the affair(s.) At any rate, I believe that “rebaptism” isn’t Biblical unless the initial baptism was invalid or insufficient. I think “rededication” would be a better term in cases where the purpose and hope is that “this time it will take.”
That re-dedication would have fit though my XHCheater was not for one millisecond sorry.
Me too👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻
I agree with what Orlando said. Cheating definitely improved my marriage!! It gave me “an excuse” to end it (as if the violence wasn’t enough – I know, I know). But I always hung on because he was bipolar and I thought I had to be there through thick and thin. Him moving in with the fat-ankled skank just made it easier to get out – and I’ve never regretted dumping his sorry ass for even one minute!
My #1 and 2 cheaters gave me so much ammo to end it and this was a huge 🎁 gift after living with #2s manic bipolar disease for 15.out of the 30 years and#1OW for 3 out of 1 years. I am thrilled. I only feel deep pity for chumps that stay and stay. They have no idea the joy and sweet freedom of being single. My opinion.
The total lack of sleep while trying to hold down a job nearly killed me. When he was manic he could go four days without sleep – so of course that was how many hours sleep I got too! Hell I’m so glad I’m out of it!
My bipolar had. new car every other year, old car every other year for me. 7 motorcycles in 2 1/2 years. New job every two years, flirting, inappropriate with my sweet daughter, no house care except bread crumbs, unfinished projects under all the beds, in the garage, in the guest room. Hoping for me. And I was the ONLY ONE who understood him. Yup. Me
Mine got shit-faced and went out and ordered himself a €60,000 car – which of course we had to finance. Add to that the god knows how many guitars (probably 12). When we divorced my car was generously valued at €1,000 so at least I forced him to refinance his car on his own dime! And of course he never did ANYTHING. I would go out grocery shopping on Saturday morning and come back to find him either passed out drunk!
I did stay feeling I was special. I was an RN so only I understood him
Didn’t know he had a harem of understanding OW.
So similar to me. My ex was bipolar. She said several times she wanted a divorce, and then would come back and thank me for standing by her, not giving up on us, etc. And I bought it hook, line, and sinker. It escalated over the years, it started “I want a divorce” and then several hours later she would come telling me she wanted to stay. Then it turned into going to a hotel for a couple of days. Then 3 years ago she moved out for 3 months. This last time she decided to mix in the adultery.
I asked myself was it really bipolar, and even if it was should I keep subjecting myself to this. But I was in love, and committed. Cheaters suck.
Me too☝️
Bipolar disease does make one a master at manipulation
FW was diagnosed with bipolar and was taking medication BUT he was also drinking like a fish along with it. He had a foul temper anyway, but the booze just added to it. We made damn good money together but when he was manic he could plow through that and more so we were always in debt. I felt bad for him. He described it like having constant flash photography in his brain, so I thought I needed to be there for him. But in the end, he was going to ruin us financially and/or kill me. My biggest worry was him drink driving and killing/hurting someone and we would lose everything. In the end I had to let it go. He had wonderful insurance, was seeing doctors and had the medication he needed but if he chose not to deal with his bipolar then there was nothing else I could do. I coudn’t allow him to take me and the kids down with him. Thankfully he’s someone else’s problem now. Latest schmoopie doesn’t have much of a retirement and he can’t be alone so I guess they’re stuck together. I just thank god I cut that anchor!
Mania is one of the most difficult things to deal with. My mother had lifelong mental health issues but in her old age she developed mania along with dementia and it was such an unbelievable struggle to regulate her life at all when she went into these phases. She could go for days without sleep and would do the craziest things, some of which I found out later (because I also worked full time). People have no idea of how difficult this is to deal with – I begged the authorities to help me put her in a nursing home (she was on public aid for health) but no one would help until she had a bad fall finally. They wait until it all collapses before something is done. I always tell people to save themselves and the rest of the family if they can. You’ll drown trying to save the sick person, some people cannot be saved.
⚓️✂️
Ouch. My fat ankles are hurt.
Ha ha, mine too! Actually I don’t know if she had fat ankles – it just had a certain ring to it – and pissed FW off every time I said it!
Me neither! 25 years with a sociopath was enough! Thank goodness for divorce and no contact! Life is infinitely better now. I’m 9+ years from Dday, 7 from divorce. Kids are adults so no need to have ANY contact🎉. My fiancé is better than X in every way that matters.
Schmoopie didn’t last either – she cheated on him – but she did at least let everyone know that she HAD to leave him because she was afraid he would kill her!!! Kinda justified everything I said. But ain’t life great on the other side!!!
Yes, cheating made my marriage so much better (not!) I spent hours every day being the marriage police. My stomach was in turmoil. My anxiety level was high all the time. I asked nothing of him because I didn’t want to scare the timid forest creature so he worked less and less. I felt sick all the time.
He loved the challenge of deceiving me and gloried it how clever he was….
Better for who? Yes, he was happy. Better for me? I was a mess.
Six years out from under that now – my life is so much better. Thank you Chump Lady and Chump nation for being my support and guiding light to peace and happiness!
Ditto👆🏻. Leave a cheater, gain a life! It works!
Ditto! The cheating made my marriage stronger by ending it. LOL!
It gave me the permission to leave. I would have stayed and put up with the abuse if he hadn’t given me the STI. He told me one day after I found out, “You should be happy I cheated. Now you can leave.” I was so offended at the time he said that but now I clearly see his point. I am super lucky. I have a chance to start over in my 40’s. Life is amazing!!!!
I came to a screeching halt when I read this:
“The two met at a St. Louis church youth group when Matt was 13 and Charity, then a college freshman, became a friend of his family.“
Perception bias alert: let’s imagine if Matt were the college freshman and Charity were the thirteen year old.
#marykayletourneau
Too many people (two is too many) seem to think women cannot be predators.
I have trouble accepting acceptance of predatory behavior no matter the gender. That a pedophile pass for women coexists with the rise of #metoo.
Barf barf barf all over this degenerate situation. All of the effed up elements of it.
There is excrement ganache for garnish on top of this ungodly shit sandwich.
……that being said, Matt does not get a pass for leading a secret sexual double life. IMHO, these two are a creepy cautionary tale, not role models.
IKR. That they could print that sentence without even thinking of the sinister implications is revolting.
WAIT, I COMPLETELY MISSED THAT. WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT!?
Yep, that jumped out at me too! No excuses for his behavior but it seems predatory that she insinuated herself into his family when he was 13 and they were married by the time he was 21.
I think both are trash people in different ways.
I am so glad that I did not try to win Ex-Mrs LFTT back. Even more than that, the thought of having her back makes me shudder; it would be like being punished for something I didn’t do all over again. Literally the only positive thing that came out of her infidelity, theft, lies and manipulations was that, once she had left the kids and I, we were able to start on the journey to where we are today; a much better life than we could have ever achieved were she still in it ….. and I fully accept that in making that statement I am applying a huge amount of “positive mindset polish” to what was a f*cking giant turd.
LFTT
Sadly I did pickme dance for months. My self esteem was shit, and I thought I couldn’t live without her. CL/CN has helped with that, I know I’m better off, but I guess I still have some lingering issues, because I still ruminate, and play “what if”. Hopefully I’ll quash that completely soon.
It will get less and less frequent with time. Don’t sweat it. Every chump goes through that.
Very normal..
I am in that same boat-I put in about a year of (knowing) pick-me dance for very similar reasons-it felt like it came out of left field. I had invested so much of my time and life into her and our future that when D-Day came the entire concept of a future was this nebulous black hole(I know far better now). I argue with mine in my head a few times a day(no contact or anything-I always win and none of that makes her go back in time and fix her shit before causality takes over). Work has been stressful and my mind goes to that particular dark place-so “still triggered.”
These are normal parts of recovering from abuse. We are going to have good days and bad days. We are going to KNOW that we are not at fault (regardless of what dipshits say) but still have that irritating bit of doubt about that(like the sore in our mouth that won’t go away because we won’t stop tonging it to make sure it’s still there.) We need to give ourselves permission to be sad and angry(Gods know that SHE never gave me that permission!) because those are completely normal and healthy things to feel in our position(and well…the rest of the time, it turns out!)
Trauma, it turns out, does not go away. It does not shrink the way we want it to. We grow bigger and better around it and in spite of it. “And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
You’ve got this. If today sucks…let’s all try again tomorrow!
Love the Dune reference. “Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear and permit it to go over and through me….” When in the thick of it, it’s very difficult to see, but we are strong!
I put the reference there for it to be noticed ^_^. I am happy to be in the crowd where people are likely to catch it.
Not just strong, but Mighty!
OLT,
It also took me a long time to realise what I was truly capable of achieving without her, as my self-esteem was shot to pieces ….. and it was Ex-Mrs LFTT who was holding the smoking gun It’s not the state you were in when she left that matters; what matters is where you eventually get to after she leaves.
LFTT
They were struggling financially, because Matt refused to get a real job. He finally gets one, and then this… The clear message is, “Don’t make me adult, or this is what will happen!”
Awwww!!! What a love story, and just in time for Valentine’s Day. 🤢🤮 or Mardi Gras, depending on how you look at it.🤡
Right. I don’t believe that this was either his first or his last time cheating.
Wonder if Matt is still in his super stressful church job and how much policing Charity has to do since that’s where he does his ho shopping.
Ewww that was a festival of ick with extra putrid ‘cheated with a woman from church’ icing.
Hopefully Charity will choose herself over her public image one day and ask how spreading her gospel of spackle to others via her new shiny career is being of any use at all.
The ‘professional’ needs a whack with the reality stick- to think you need a degree to bullshit people like this.
I just cannot fathom how these people think that anything they say is in any way new, groundbreaking, or helpful. It’s just… tired. We’ve been blaming spouses for not being “enough” to keep the cheater faithful since… forever? Anyway, cheating made my marriage “better” through an untreated substance abuse disorder that he shared with his schmoopie and the theft of 10s of thousands of dollars of marital funds for drugs and lord knows what else. Now he’s playing daddy of the year by promising our daughter he (alone, because I wasn’t fool enough to make this promise) will make sure she graduates from college debt-free… dude, would that you had just not stolen money and let me fully fund our college savings plan for her…
Ugh. The sin-leveling (look it up on Divorce Minister’s site).
It was a huge breakthrough when I realized that my times of inattention didn’t nearly justify my ex’s choices.
After he left, I did a lot of coaching and therapy during the first year of separation before the attorneys got involved. I wanted to get to a better place, no matter what the future looked like. That served me well because I was emotionally ready for the divorce process.
Meanwhile, my ex “counseled” with his family. They 98% blamed me for the mess. Because he made so very little effort and refused to address the core issues, it was more clear to me when I ended discussions of reconciliation.
Then, even his attorney called him out on all the blame-and-game told me that his client was a jerk who didn’t deserve to be married (LOL). That was my closure.
Lol– don’t be misogynistic and blame side pieces! Blame wives!
Another week, another cheating apologia shitshow in the media which fails to mention things like STDs, traumatized kids and financial abuse– sigh. The relentlessness of it kind of reminds me of the constant gong-banging buildup to the invasion of Iraq in which the NY Times and other “papers of record” got busted for illegally planting state department propaganda.
Call it media “war footing” but, like, who’s the war on in this case? Women? But men are chumped too even if it’s statistically less frequently. So I think the war is largely to muddy up public conceptions of sexual consent as part of a coordinated backlash against #MeToo which, btw, also brought forth the voices of male victims and, all told, cost the media and its sponsors the equivalent of the GDP of a mid-sized island nation. In just one instance, Netflix ended up paying a whopping $39m to break Kevin Spacey’s contract after he was multiply accused of harassment and assault.
Who knows, maybe pervy media execs and owners and related power figures think they wouldn’t have to rape and harass as much if only they could– through Brave New World-style booty training– raise the next generations of interns and underlings (of all pronouns and marital statuses) to more willingly blow wrinkled old cock in the green room? And I’m sure pervy married media honchos wouldn’t be displeased if, when chumped spouses discover the dalliances, divorce settlements were influenced by the wag-the-dog normalization of cheating and chump-blaming.
Of course since most victims of cheating and domestic abuse are statistically female, the pro-cheater mania in the media is effectively misogynistic but then women have never been the only ones who pay for patriarchy and inequality from an evolutionary standpoint. Come to think of it, inequality is always good for the war industry to the degree that more egalitarian societies tend to be measurably less hegemonic and less warring so maybe the “war footing” comes full circle? Dunno but this whole adultery-is-groovy campaign has a similar stink as the coordinated backlash that Susan Faludi wrote about more than 30 years ago.
Well, you can’t blame the side pieces because they are the ones – male or female – who enable this paradise of cheating they all aspire to. The wives are those bitter old dregs who apparently keep hitting everyone’s knuckles with the Ruler of Chastisement. Maybe we should all start worshiping wives because apparently we are more powerful than God, or Buddha or Allah, or anything else out there. We control it all!!!
Yes, we wives have the mysterious ability to transvect perfectly moral, upright men out of their pants and into rando orifices with the power of our minds. Bow down before us, mere mortals, or we shall smite thee!
Hillary blamed Monica right? Its everywhere.
Feminist author Susan Faludi had some choice words for Monica as well but I think it was mostly a reaction to Lewinsky grubbing supposedly feminist creds by claiming “victim of slut-shaming” status in order to whore for more publicity.
The wife defends- blames- shames,, and the OW defends and blames. ..poor me!!!Neither the one who stays nor the one who” uses ” wins. It’s all for the glory of the pick me dance, while the cheater takes it all in while sitting on the golden throne. Always squeaky clean.
I agree HOC there is always an agenda beneath the agenda.
It’s a bit dicey to speculate on obtuse corporate agendas in an age when everyone’s afraid of being aligned with flat earthers or David Ickian lizard alien wackos, etc. Which is precisely why some credible political analysts believe that several of the goofier recent conspiracy theories were invented in board rooms as a sort of Sunsteinian strawman strategy– i.e., as a obtuse conspiracy to bring down corporate-unfriendly political movements using fabricated conspiracy and also to get regular people to stfu and stop speculating in ways that discomfit power.
If you remember the scandal, someone leaked political strategist Cass Sunstein’s Harvard paper recommending the infiltration of various online groups to sow a sort of agitprop frenzy. I think Snowden also leaked documents involving plans to introduce crazy false theories to fragment and then discredit potential activist hubs. Old fashioned entryism with a Hoover era twist.
Mine tried to present me a copy of “The Ethical Slut” after she asked to open up the relationship (read: she had already been cheating for 6 months and wanted permission to continue and not feel bad about it.) I said “no” to both-apparently in the culture of Dipshits if somebody tells you “no”, you simply disregard the answer and try again if you are not satisfied with the answer and present confirmation bias porn. She used to love saying “no”-never quite seemed to get the same thrill the few times she would hear it.
There was a pick-me dance in my future one way or the other. She REALLY didn’t like it when I told her that I read the copy on the back and saw no way sane way how that was going to improve our communication or relationship. (Side note: my therapist went “THAT FUCKING BOOK!” when I brought that up after I was done spackling on the matter.)
And can I just say, can we at least apply peer review to “someone wrote a book about why _______ is right?” Publishing is easier than ever with Print on Demand. Like, would these people believe it and follow through if I wrote 65,000 words about how jamming sand into their private parts and how that makes abuse acceptable? I’ll even put “Dr.” in front of my name and everything!
I will say that getting chumped has made me a better, stronger person(and probably a better partner when that time rolls around again). Apart from just making me appreciate the actually trustworthy people in the world all the more and has given me more insight into myself, I am actively addressing my own codependence, lack of self respect, and shortcomings. In Approximately 6 months since D-Day and that monster walking out I have achieved straight up life goals and have tangible work in on others that she actively interfered with.
And even more importantly, realizing that nobody in this world had the right to violate everything I hold dear in order to achieve those improvements.
The best thing infidelity did for my relationship? It ended it.
Finding myself again post-divorce was indeed a huge positive. I had squashed myself and pick-me danced and all the rest trying to save my marriage, and then I gradually became better and wiser after we separated. I learned to tell people “I’m not going to discuss this further” and to choose my close friends carefully. I had respectful, honest conversations with my attorney about my priorities and possibilities. He told me repeatedly, “You sell yourself short, Elsie. You have all kinds of depth and capabilities.” Others on my side have said the same over and over. My ex said I’d go down into nothingness without him. Didn’t happen.
Last night, I had dinner with a friend who told her husband Sunday that she wants a divorce. He is likely having an affair with the neighbor and has been ratcheting up the control to keep her stuck where he wants her. Inside, I kept thinking about how much I would like to go beat some sense into him if I had the capability and if it would actually work (it wouldn’t). Old Elsie would have told her to have more sex and cook better dinners to save her marriage. Sure didn’t work for me, and she knows it won’t work for her either.
Yeah, it never works. It just shows them that treating you like shit gets you to dance even harder.
And it big-time scrambles your thinking!!!
My friend said that she was seriously questioning her sanity at times, and I get it. After telling him that she wants a divorce, he went over to the neighbor lady’s house for three hours and then went to bed. He didn’t talk to her for three days and went to the neighbor’s every evening. Then he tried to kiss her when he came home and asked her what was for dinner. She stormed out to have dinner with me.
Seriously?
I got the gaslighting, too. It’s not fun. Had me seriously questioning if I had a psychotic break. Nope, this is reality. And it sucks. Mine loved her mind games-particularly between D-Day and her departure. Her furtive attempts to keep hooks in have maintained them. It is getting easier to deflect and continue with my day.
The warped logic of the cheater, I tell you! 2+3 might just equal potato to them. There’s a reason why when I use “FW”-it is not “former wayward”, it’s “fuckwit.” Or else “Former ‘Wait…what?'”
It does mess with you. I do a lot of domestic violence/divorce recovery volunteer work, and I tell them that all the time — it takes a while to get them out of your head. You are NOT crazy.
Out with the fuckwit!
I always love your comments, Jeff. Somehow I don’t think aspiring to be a “slut” is a good thing for any person. Some words…..like “slut” or “whore” are not compliments in ANY language. That she would even consider thinking of herself in these terms….well….she defined herself and obviously you have higher standards.
That’s a great attitude Jeff. Our timelines are similar. I’m definitely heading down the road, it just took me a few months to get started moving
Imagine how much stronger the marriage would be if he cheated again!
So what is the message here exactly? That everyone should have affairs?
Well, CLEARLY we were all supposed to see getting chumped and abused as something more like a speeding ticket-“Boy, I better fix my ways or there’s going to be more problems!” Or something.
And not what did happen-the speeding ticket made us afraid of not just speeding, but cars, driving, and the concept of roads.
This makes me want to cry !!!!!😭But with 4 kids and a way to earn a living these two hit gold. I’m pretty sure even 6 more affairs would make it better. More articles and sandwiches with mayo. Were Chumps designed to play this part by our broken hearts💔??.And now PEOPLE says this is good copy? Let’s Keep our VOICES LOUD to save those who have the courage to hold onto their mental health their physical health their dignity, their self worth join CN.and keep the truth of cheating alive. It rarely stops, it just goes underground.
He was the music director at some mega-church, I’m guessing? Is that so stressful?
The whole thing has an undertone of religiosity — the rigid, repressive kind.
I get the impression from what I’ve seen of those mega-churches, (which is only on video because we don’t have them in Ireland and I’m a Catholic anyway), that it’s all about making the congregation feel good and telling them what they want to hear. Cherry picking out of Scripture to back up the false notion that God wants them to feel good all the time and have everything they want in this life? This would certainly attract people with high levels of entitlement. I could be wrong about this and apologies if I am, but that’s the impression I’ve been having and these two are reinforcing it!
It’ll be one of those creepy cult like churches that lure people in and have electronic payment to collect tithes.
Not much Christ in that sort of church.
Ooooh. Have a particular hatred of those churches. Count them up there with the ones that have ATMs up all the time in the premises (Understandable during, say, a fundraising sale, but all the time, RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR CHURCH SANCTUARY!? Nothankyou, last I checked, the Christ-like response to that was to fashion a whip!) and the ones that demand a tithe to even come in for a service.
Yes, the whole point of the Virtue of Charity is it comes from a caring heart and is voluntary, not manipulated and definitely NOT demanded!
My forecast when they have sucked all the money they can from this; Headline: We are consciously uncoupling; we will always be family. (just in case there is another way we can scam more money out of chumps).
I give them 8 to ten years. Just about the time she starts aging, he will find his twu luv in a woman 20 years younger. Look at his Manson-esque eyes. He is gleeful about pulling this con off.
Yes, his eyes say to me that he’s absolutely gleeful and that he’s thinking something along the lines of “I can’t believe I’ve got away with it!!! I’m just BRILLIANT!!!”
I also suspect they’re both high in narc traits and them dragging their kids into this sordid drama only reinforces that suspicion!
I was creeped out by the picture too. It’s not going to last.
I was creeped out too, partly because she looks a bit like FW’s former AP, shudder. The AP was tubbier and had a heavier jaw but they both smile in pictures like someone’s jamming a gun in their ribs and ordering them to grin or else. Except Chump Charity’s grin looks more terrified while “Danger Pig’s” (kids’ nickname) made her like a grimacing death’s head of insincerity.
By the way, why do people smile like that? Is there some “manic glee Olympics” they’re competing in? Are they showing off what they spent on cosmetic dentistry? Whatever the case, I always steered away from working for companies with too many bio photos — typically women’s– featuring the “rigor mortis corporate grin” because I associated environments like that with extra creepy perving and extra vicious backstabbing.
This reminds me of a Very Famous Personal Development coach who dumped his first wife for a new, younger version, and the old wife has been all but scrubbed from the history. The new wife, in the beginning looked full of vim and vigor, confidence and self-satisfaction at the unassailable position of being the ‘chosen one’, but now in every photo I see, the smile doesn’t reach the eyes and they seem to tell a story of having ‘seen some things’. She’s started to age too, and there are some very attractive and dynamic female coaches that seem to have risen in the zvery quickly, so read into that what you will. It must be a little bit soul crushing to think you were chosen for how special you are, then realizing that you were there to produce a certain set of feelings in someone, and when you can no longer do that, you have limited value.
👆👆👆1000% agree!
His assholery has just gone underground like the cicadas. He will most definitely pop his little insect head back out in 7?, 13? years or so?
Entitled ppl don’t become disentitled. They will eventually wreak more havoc. Just need to regroup when they’ve be called out, and get his chump to trust him beyond any doubt again.
That’s the exciting part for them. They are heat seeking missiles of destruction awaiting to be reloaded in the chamber.
I totally agree, I see the same look in his eyes.
WAIT !!! HOLD UP !!!!!
I clicked the link to the article, and the Craigs published a photo of their four kids, y’all !!! omg, the cruelty! They’re dragging their unconsenting kids into this. (And don’t tell me the kids are old enough to consent. They don’t understand the consequences of their parents’ narcissism.) Wow, wow. How awful.
Oh not this shit again. More pathetic Jesus Cheater misogynistic fucked up “marriage” complete with “brights” (that drugged out high beams look in the eyes) and life coach financial aspirations. Might as well make money off dude’s extraneous fucking!
These people are REVOLTING. They have ZERO self respect, both of them. The way the push this stuff is so HARMFUL to so MANY desperate people who should be trying to SAVE THEMSELVES and NOT their “marriage”. They prolong the agony so many go through and I’m sure their “marriage” is as fucking fake as their smiles.
How did cheating make my marriage stronger – well, my husband unlike Cheater 1 decades before (whom I was not married to) only did online stuff with dating apps. He never met any of them (I do believe that and I’m not a trusting person) so I did forgive him and he hasn’t gone back to it. I don’t trust him however and this is around 9 years later. I’ll never fully trust him again and I view him differently and not in a good way. Last summer we went somewhere and I came into the house and he stayed out with the car – a half hour went by and I’m wondering where the hell is he. I went out to where the car was parked and he was talking to the attractive single mom next door – I immediately felt jealousy and concern because…why? Solely because I caught him doing the online stuff (purely by accident, it was late at night and I was trying to surprise him by fixing his computer – I surprised him all right – he’d left screens and emails up). I’m sure there’s nothing going on with this woman, and I am really sure of that. Why did I/do I stay? Because of health and money reasons. I do love him and I do think he loves me, but if I had the money and better health I would definitely move out, even now. Sometimes it’s not practical for people but as long as nothing is going on, it’s just kind of the way life is. I always understand that sometimes people can’t move out or it’s too difficult to break up and that’s the way it is as long as it’s mainly good and you’re not losing self respect, experiencing abuse, or eating a shit sandwich every day. But it’s never the same after you discover they have this in them, anyone who tells you it is, is LYING. You never view them the same way again. You just care less.
BTW, I was reading one of CL’s archive threads about some site where they “stand” for their marriage – I’m sure many of you have seen that thread or that site. It focuses on older cheaters and Mid Life Crises (MLCs). I actually checked out the site to see what they were on about. It’s frankly not as bad as I expected. While they are committed generally, probably for religious reasons, to continue or recover their marriage if at all possible, they do some of the same things CL recommends like NC. Even though they are mostly committed to recovering their marriage even after cheater leaves, most of them do seem to have limits and eventually get divorced. They also strongly advocate developing active lives for themselves and not just sit and wait. So even these people have limits, which I was glad to see. Most also seem to believe/understand that if their marriage is recovered and the cheater returns, has real remorse and does work to make some restitution, that it’s never going to be the same marriage and it’s like a second marriage. Much better than these people cited today who to me just seem to live in denial and try to brush away all those bad feelings that people like us KNOW continue to taint even a “recovered” relationship. You just don’t view cheater the same way again even if you want to….it comes up from somewhere near where I imagine the spleen is, sometimes unexpectedly. When they cheat…..that marriage is broken and probably over for most people. Let’s not put too much lipstick on the pig.
“Something tells you you don’t want to live without that person,” Matt remarks.
Whatever “healing” they may or may not have done together, Matt sounds utterly baffled about why he’s married. Some mysterious thing way back when.
Oh he knows, he’s married because he knows he couldn’t handle shared custody of 4 children that he has no idea how to look after and juggle his prestigious job, and he knows he’ll look like a huge asshole instead of a nice guy who made a mistake once if he abandons them all. And it would take time and effort to woo someone new to look after the kids so he could keep doing what he wants to do, which is all his stuff and not being a supportive, equal partner in their lives.
Probably because HE isn’t married…..his deluded wife is.
Cheating put a bullet through my marriage and me. The most profound pain I have EVER experienced.
How can such abuse improve your marriage? How can you ever trust an evil, cruel and deceptive person?
I don’t know what it feels like to be in a romantic relationship where you are genuinely accepted for who you are; where there is mutual love, trust and respect.
I have no idea.
How did cheating make my marriage stronger?
It opened my eyes to some deep, creepy dark tunnels I never knew existed in life and showed me the exit sign.
I would have stayed forever. I’m very thankful after all his decades of serial cheating, he was frantic to finally leave when he found the one of his dreams.
I’m free of it all!! I get to live a real and honest great life, no longer cast into the shadows of Mr. Wonderful’s wonderfulness! I get another chance to be me in this life. I have much gratitude for that.
Infidelity may not have saved my marriage. But it did save my life.
“I’m free of it all!! I get to live a real and honest great life, no longer cast into the shadows of Mr. Wonderful’s wonderfulness! I get another chance to be me in this life. I have much gratitude for that.”
Same. 🥂
So Matt’s ability to connect with potential affair partners opened WAAAAY up and he found someone damaged enough in his ‘flock’ to take action on the vibe engendered by his poor me I’m sooo stressed martyr aesthetic. And he was stressed and needed to leave the job, but that was Charity’s fault because she had four children 5 and under and couldn’t be there for him? Honestly, the thing that amazes me the most about affairs is, who has the time for them, especially in a busy, challenging overwhelming environment? It always seems to be that they divert the energy and focus that could have been used to helped them find solutions and rectify the situation (mostly by being honest and having the guts to make hard decisions) into denial, escapism, ego bolstering and feel-gooding instead. Because their self-absorption tells them they ‘deserve’ to feel good, and entitled to the resentment that they feel toward their partner for not automatically being able to read their mind, take ownership of the situation and dig them out of the hole. Hell, she takes care of all the other mundane, unpleasant aspects of their lives, so why not his one, so he can go back to being unbothered rock-star musical Jesus? Poor Charity. He doesn’t really want to be reminded of it, and she spends her whole life reliving it as a job.
New from the authors of cheating improved my marriage, a series on how awful things are really good so nobody needs to be accountable:!burning my house down made it more livable, how cancer from smoking made me healthy, and how my drug addiction made me a better person.
Oh my goodness I love these analogies! Thank you, Chumpcat.
“I looked down the barrel at single parenthood with four children and it dawned on me I did not like my choices. Perhaps I could profit from this experience AND keep Matt from Schmoopie?”
Exactly!
Matt didn’t come back to work it out with Charity, he came back because it didn’t work out with OW.
Cheating definitely improved my marriage. It made it nonexistent, which is a great improvement on what it was.
Saying cheating is beneficial because it moved you to implement “anti-cheating” strategies is like saying home invasion is beneficial because it moved you to install a security system.
Hmm, how interesting that the chump in this story goes by the name of “Charity”. Apparently, Pastor Matt isn’t reading his Bible on the regular because if he had been, he would’ve taken heed to the common sense rule of, “Charity begins at home”, which applies universally to all Christians. Specifically, 1 Timothy 5:8 states, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever”. I suppose Matt thought “taking care of his own” meant it was OK to first groom and then repeatedly fuck a congregant — free of any professional consequences — while he had a wife and 4 children at home. I know why he and Charity are wearing shit-eating grins in this photo… they’re now raking in the big bucks by preying on other chumps, creating false hope, promising marital restoration if only The Flawed Among Us will peddle harder and faster, putting a rubber stamp on Pick Me dancing, and and spreading their own godless version of the Cheater’s Gospel. I need to step away now and retch.
I’ve told this story many times on this blog so it’s an oldie but a goodie for this topic.
My ex FW decided to HELP our marriage by finding a girlfriend. You see, he told me he’d tried hookers and that wasn’t quite enough, he’d been to sex clubs but that was a bit risky so the best idea was to have a girlfriend that could meet all of his “needs” that my oh-so-vanilla lifestyle couldn’t match. He offered to spend about half of his time with me and our daughter. He said he’d do things like mow the lawn and do the taxes, then he’d shuttle himself back to her place for sex.
Cheating most definitely did not save my marriage or make it stronger. It made it a sick and twisted gaslit, double life mind fuck that nearly killed me upon discovery. The only thing I’m thankful for is that I didn’t end up with a horrible disease. Marriages don’t come back from that.
Mine gave me the “it will make us stronger” BS, too(see above.) She was already cheated and wanted permission to continue. Her pitch…was less than effective or persuasive. And I was similarly punished with mind games, the bare minimum, and gaslighting until she excused herself 6 months ago. I imagine it would have been the same had I capitulated.
BTW, is it just me or is “hookers are ok but Sex Clubs are risky” working backwards? Not that I expect logic from cheaters-just seems like he was already getting the blue ribbon in the STD State Fair there.
Stay Mighty!
Haha! Yeah no logic going on. I think he might have been tired of paying for sex work. Clubs were cheaper, but riskier in our mid-sized city. It was devaluation all around- he devalued his wife, sex workers and his new schmoopie all in one statement. The entitlement if that guy is next level. If none of that satisfied him I wonder what poor Schmoops is doing now to keep him happy?? Not my shit show anymore 😊
Notice how they were careful to say that their “feelings evolved” from the point of his 18th birthday. Quite a coincidence, how they knew each other since he was 13 and the “evolution” waited until the exact day he turned 18.
That story smells.
Imagine being a freshman or sophomore in college and being attracted to a 13- or 14-year old BOY. 🤮
Amusing post. The deep introspection of the narc is enough to make one run for the hills. I preferred my FW when he was mute and disappeared intermittently. Once he started sharing his internal thoughts it was both horrifying and cringeworthy.
Im having a hard time getting past the I was a freshman in college and inserted myself into his family when he was a 13 year old boy.
Cheating didn’t make my marriage stronger, but it did make me insist upon marriage counseling. The counselor asked me what I wanted out of marriage, a question that shocked me. *I* was supposed to GET something out of marriage? I had no idea. My father (also a cheater) told me that marriage was just what you did. You went through life two by two, and you married whoever you were dating when you finished school. I thought about the question for a few weeks, and when I had an answer, I announced in our session that I wanted commitment, honesty and real intimacy. The counselor kept me back at the end of the session and said to me, “You realize he’s a pathological liar, don’t you?” I didn’t even know what pathological lying was. (I was 24; it was 1980.) “It means he will say whatever you want to hear and do whatever he wants to do. You will never have honesty or exclusivity with him.”
It took me a few weeks to wrap my head around that, but when I did I kicked him out of our apartment and filed for divorce. That made ME stronger.
Wow. Glad the counselor was honest with you, and I am also imagining the terror of having a professional give me that kind of heads-up.
Bless all good therapists like that. Wish there were more of them.
I think it was different that long ago — now I’m told the marriage, and not either of the partners is the client. I can’t imagine that happening now.
Ugh! The only things that were made stronger by my ex’s cheating was my vision/clarity about all the abuse I’d endured for decades, and my dislike of even being in the same room as him.
“Cheating saved my marriage” logic is as flawed as “I was able to finally lose weight because of the cancer in my jaw.”
If the problem didn’t exist it wouldn’t have to be fixed.
If I didn’t have a cat I wouldn’t have to feed it.
If I didn’t have an affair my wife wouldn’t have had to “save the marriage”.
I couldn’t even make it more than halfway through this drivel. Props to the UBT for slogging through to the end.
To answer the q: FW’s betrayal made my marriage “stronger” because it forced me to realize that I’d been unwittingly married to a narcissist for 14 years, so I left.
One of my fave parts of this delulu interview: “Once you heal yourself and your marriage, 10,000 women can walk past my husband, and he’s not going to blink an eye because he’s not looking for an escape.”
Lol. Yet.
Bullshit Translator overload
All the children are teenagers now? Let’s hope they can’t calculate their parents’ ages and don’t read People Magazine.
On the other hand, the article’s author and the church should join with those closest to this couple and ask “WTF?” If this had been physical abuse, it would have been flagged before being published.
This situation is going to implode any minute.
So if he cheats again it’ll make their marriage even stronger 😂🤣
Yes. Good response.
It just makes sense that if she changes herself, and he still has an itch; well cheat again because she obviously still has some work to do on herself.