UBT: I’m Sorry I Wasn’t Able to Love You the Way You Wanted
Her cheater sent her an apology that he was sorry he couldn’t “love you the way you wanted.” He didn’t realize love was a multiple choice quiz and he chose wrong.
***
Hi Chump Lady,
I emailed you back in 2023 with my cheater’s apology to put through the UBT “I Had a Moment of Weakness As a Fragile, Broken Human.”
I have another lame apology for the UBT.
Communication with the cheater goes through a court-ordered parenting app since the split. He has put me through hell the past two years with ongoing custody and support issues. I can barely go a couple months without getting dragged back to court. In the meantime, he dated the OW for a year after our split, but she finally let him, sold her house, and moved far away. This past Christmas was the first Christmas he spent alone since it was my holiday with the kids.
So there I am, getting ready to open presents with the kids, prepping food for when all my family was coming over, listening to Christmas music and just feeling happy, when he sends me a text message, the first communication outside of the parenting app in two years.
Here is that message:
“Life is too short to not share these feelings and thoughts with you despite everything that has happened. Merry Christmas, Heather! It is because of you that I have our boys and I will always be grateful for that. I always appreciated your desire for holiday traditions, even if I didn’t always show it. You are a special person Heather whom I still love and I am sorry for what happened between us. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to love you the way you wanted, or needed. I hope your morning with the boys was special and you enjoy the rest of the day with them and your family.”
What I would find out a mere week after this Christmas message was that he was already filing paperwork to take me back to court, again. Obviously, I didn’t respond, but it took me a bit to shake it off and try to get back into my Christmas happy place.
Cheers!
Heather
***
Dear Heather,
Yeah, nothing says “I’m sorry” like litigation abuse. All these lame-ass apologies are impression management and self-pity. He wants to think of himself as a magnificent, caring person who just happens to sue you. Who among us hasn’t filed a frivolous lawsuit or seven?
I once read a fitting description of narcissistic behavior: “Come here closer… so I can slap you.” The “apology” is the come hither. Now wait for the inevitable slap. You don’t get one without the other — rookie chumps take warning!
FWs chose their moments.
Of course he sent this at Christmas. I guess your birthday or other special day wasn’t available. Going forward, if you’re not prevented by court order, block this nitwit from your phone. Seeing as he prefers to communicate via lawyers, he can send his holiday greetings through them.
Meanwhile, the Universal Bullshit Translator is here to explain your ex’s dipshittery.
I WILL NOT BE IGNORED
Life is too short to not share these feelings and thoughts with you
Every moment of my life I will remind you of my odious existence. Behold my centrality! #thoughts&feelings
despite everything that has happened
Things happen. I have no idea who set those lawsuits into motion.
Merry Christmas, Heather!
Eat tinsel, Heather! I hope you choke! HOW DARE YOU BE MERRY WITHOUT ME!
It is because of you that I have our boys and I will always be grateful for that.
I will always be grateful that I have the boys to triangulate you with.
Manipulation is my love language…
I always appreciated your desire for holiday traditions, even if I didn’t always show it.
When you were assembling that new bicycle in the garage, as I was texting my mistress? Appreciation! When you were stuffing the kids’ stockings and I was jerking off in the basement? Appreciation! When you hosted all of my extended family and I ghosted you to fuck strange? Appreciation!
Gaslighting you is my holiday tradition.
You are a special person Heather
You are a special defendant, Heather. Hugs & kisses, Yours, Plaintiff.
whom I still love and I am sorry for what happened between us.
What happened between us? Sorry means never having to be specific.
I am sorry that I wasn’t able to love you the way you wanted, or needed.
Filipino applejacks, Henry! I will not abide roosters. Come down from that tea cosy!
(I’m sorry the UBT has malfunctioned. Bullshit is oozing through its sockets. Mayday!)
Chump Lady filling in here, while the machine recovers. I have a particular aversion to this moronic phrase. Do bad actors all find this same line in some mindfuckery discount bin?
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to love you the way you wanted or needed” is blameshifting. It puts the onus on the CHUMP. Like you’re some diva with all these needs and demands, and the poor sausage just couldn’t meet your exacting standards. YOU wanted. YOU needed.
How dare you have needs!
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to love you the way you wanted or needed” — or often added “deserved” — is faux acknowledgement of sin. The cheater’s actions are missing. The problem is you wanted things. An actual APOLOGY is “I’m sorry I cheated on you. I’m sorry I didn’t respect you.”
Phrased the cheater way, the problem is you had standards.
Okay, back to the UBT. I had to produce an enormous amount of Lebkuchen as tribute to finish this.
I hope your morning with the boys was special and you enjoy the rest of the day with them and your family.
Heather, you special person, I hope your day was special. I have a special lawsuit prepared just for you. Enjoy the boys, enjoy your family YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR INDIFFERENCE TO ME.
***
Heather, talk to your lawyer about litigation abuse. I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice, but some people have language in their settlement agreements that whoever fucks with the order has to pay the other person’s legal fees. Time for stronger measures.
Keep rocking your joyful life without him.
““I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to love you the way you wanted or needed” is blameshifting. It puts the onus on the CHUMP. Like you’re some diva with all these needs and demands, and the poor sausage just couldn’t meet your exacting standards. YOU wanted. YOU needed.”
Yup. This one gets me riled as well. It really turns the lens on the chump, as CL said, it makes it sound like the chump had these needs and wants that were just SO demanding. But in actuality, what the FW was unable to do was be decent. Be loyal. Be respectful to the woman that held him up for decades, got himthrough the worst of times, gave him beautiful children and put up with his absolute nightmare mood swings.
I didn’t expect much at all from the FW in my life. He is emotionally and verbally abusive, always has been, I put up with it. I ran around fruitlessly trying to keep him in a good mood, walking on eggshells, deferring to him in everything. If he had just been kind to me more often than he wasn’t kind? I’d have been ecstatic.
In many ways the affair freed me as it became the thing I could not and would not abide.
But he absolutely has peppered his faux apologies with this “I couldn’t love you the way you wanted/needed” type of nonsense. You mean you couldn’t NOT have a years long affair while simultaneously abusing me when you could have just left the marriage ethically? Oh ok.
“In many ways the affair freed me as it became the thing I could not and would not abide.”
Ditto. It’s the only reason I am free, which bothers me. It took that bridge too far to wake me out of my stupor? Oh well. Live and learn.
I think it’s normal– at least typical in the context of domestic abuse. When I did advocacy it became very clear that cheating was often the last straw for battering and coercive control victims because cheating signaled that abusers’ “gloves were coming off” and the danger of remaining in the relationship finally exceeded the very considerable statistical danger of leaving. In other words, as bad as things had already been, they were about to get a whole lot worse if not lethal.
It makes sense from the perspective that victims usually sense their “usefulness” as sexual appliances may be their only window of mercy within abusive relationships, Consequently, the signal that abusers are in the process of sexually “replacing” victims understandably sends up red alerts in everyone’s ancient lizard brain “risk management faculty.” But because this is such a hard-wired, almost unconscious response to dangerous dynamics, a lot of survivors feel confused about why infidelity was the final straw and may buy into the idea that they were driven by mere jealousy or possessiveness— i.e., the old timey, debunked codependency theory.
Another dynamic where this can happen is among hostages. A captor may single out one hostage as a “favorite.” Seeing other hostages being tortured or killed around them may make a hostage appreciate this “favored” status and feel threatened if they sense they’re losing it even while, if they were free, they would have detested and reviled the captor with every fiber of their being. The protection racket dynamic generates compliance so predictably that even veteran intelligence agents are never given whole parcels of state secrets because, in captivity, everyone cracks.
Heather, I feel for you and your kids. This is deliberate and malicious. And probably triggered because he was alone on Christmas for the first time, and feeling the pain of being dumped by the OW. The day after my ex proposed to another woman and she dumped him, he reported me to his therapist, CPS and police for allegedly beating tween black and blue. More than six officers showed up. No bruises. And the only abuse that came out was his own.
Before FW Fraudster, my first time through the custody battle was so contentious for years that it was was moved from family court to a three-day hearing in district court. The judge suggested we use My Family Wizard or other text, and granted me both decision making and full parenting time. He also ruled that any subsequent grievances would have to go through mediation first, other than a two-day financial hearing. Although father had demanded that I pay extensive fees for his attorney and multiple “hired gun” parenting experts, the Judge ruled that father would have to pay all his own legal bills.
Perhaps your attorney could go after him for his pattern of legal abuse and ask for him to pay YOUR legal fees, since he is taking those financial resources away from your children as well as you.
Requiring mediation might also be a deterrent. If it’s not face to face mediation, and each party is in a separate room (or better yet, done by Zoom), your ex won’t have the chance to literally and physically see you (in court or elsewhere), or force you to watch him grandstand. I think part of why narcs like court is to demean, belittle and subjugate their partners through their own testimony or their attorneys’ cross-examination.
As Tracy suggested, you could ask for language that whoever challenges the prior order has to pay the legal fees. I’d be careful that this doesn’t go into effect after/if he gets the order changed in his favor, rather than the kids’ favor. For the same reason, I’d be leery of an order that grants attorney fees to the victor, since a judge may make a poor ruling.
Uh oh. OW didn’t work out. Now he has to put out feelers and see if his ex is willing to come back and serve him til he can find another willing victim. If she won’t do so willingly? Well, litigation abuse might scare her into it.
I swear they are all the same. After AP left my FW, he started sniffing around me trying to suss out whether I had any feelings. He started inviting me to do things with him and our child (“I’m grilling burgers tonight. Do you want to stay for dinner?”, “We’re going bowling this weekend. Do you want to come?”). Needless to say, I found an excuse every time. FW couldn’t be alone, and he was banking on me being desperate to get back together with him (I admit, I had pick me danced pretty hard at the beginning). He was, I think, quite taken aback when I was completely indifferent. I wasn’t even angry anymore. I felt absolutely nothing for him at that point.
FW also loved to mess up holidays/weekends when I had our child with me. He’d text constantly, asking inane questions or trying to start fights while I was just trying to have a nice outing or meal with my son.
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
My 30+ year marriage ended with the words, I didn’t FEEL your love. You couldn’t be what I needed,..never the other way around. What kind of love did I need? Not abusive / coercive, not blame shifting, not EAs for our whole relationship, not lying, not doing coworkers, not into porn, not pretending to be God focused as a cover. The list is endless. But did I EVER say, I didn’t feel hid love? Never. My X could not be alone for more than seconds, so I was replaced with several OW until he found one out of state on an app. He had her moved in within a few months. I didn’t feel loved either, but it was acceptable to me until it wasn’t. Blame shifting is an art. Please don’t fall for it. Increase your self worth and see your value. Raise that bar.
I’m coming up on the 20th anniversary in a few weeks. Waiting for trial at the end if May. Klootzak said to me once “I felt like you discarded ME.” Excuse me? The man who made me NEVER feel secure in his love our entire marriage? Looking back, there was always an EA or flirting or something that never sat right in my gut. I was always off balance. All I wanted was for him to be decent and faithful and he couldn’t manage that.
What you said is spot on. I accepted what little I was given until I didn’t. Raise the bar indeed!
After reading your words MWX..I am wondering if EAs and flirting right before my eyes is really a pick – me- dance effort. I recall when my Xs behavior truly upset me, his openly flirting and teasing woman, and when I said how this bothered me, I would then be ignored. It kept me off balance until I adjusted to this behavior after hearing ans being told that EVERY MAN does this and to stop being jealous. He picked out several cute ladies at church and teased them and flirted every week. Who knows what he did at work. These mostly married ladies responded with their own playful side, teasing back. Then I read in Cosmo( while getting my hair done- not my usual place for advice) that said, it’s an honor for men to flirt with others and yet still come back to you! That calmed me down and I believed the king had put forth his scepter and I was still the chosen one
That is the pick me dance if I ever heard. It…plus entitlement and arrogance. But I felt worthy instead. This is so sad for me to have to normalize my husbands always shopping for attention from cutw woman, and me standing by like a mother watching her kids at the playground. Once the mask fell off and the masquerade was over..it all broke my heart. It really did ..my eyes were opened so i could cry.💔
It’s kind of funny that cheaters/abusers tend to be far more horny and sexually manic and motivated while in relationships than they are when they’re single, but it makes sense within a certain theory of domestic abuse. It’s because their sexuality is actually fueled by a deep need to betray.
I had to do a really deep dive into forensic psychology in order to vaguely understand the twisted mentality of this kind of abuser. A very brilliant researcher named Susan Golant tied it to something called “masked dependency” where many abusers compulsively betray and abuse as a way to curb their own infantile dependency on partners.
As the theory goes, because of whatever horror show backgrounds domestic abusers come from in which they learned never to trust anyone, any feelings of love or vulnerability these people experience in adult relationships are automatically followed by a sense of catastrophically painful shame over feeling “weak” and then in turn followed by paranoid resentment that the “love object” is maliciously fostering this feeling of vulnerable dependency as a set up for betrayal.
I think it explains very well why a lot of cheaters are so vicious towards partners. It’s because, in their demented little minds, they actually think they’re “getting even” with someone they assumed would betray them (like everyone had in their childhoods). Consequently, they believe they’re simply beating partners to the punch in being the first one to betray.
In short, it’s extremely dangerous to be “loved” by someone like this because any sentiment of love they feel is quickly followed by violent suspicions and a desire to punish.
Makes me think of John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory… (1969!)
Oh, yes, forgot the author’s name. I only read about this in a few contexts– one that reflects positively on the theory– that it’s good explanation for RAD in domestic batterers– and the other that shows its limits and potential for misuse such as blaming battering, serial killing, all sexual criminality in general and all sorts of developmental disorders on cold mommies (or was it overprotective? Can’t win for losing).
But I heard an explanation that helps reconcile this contradiction– the idea that maternal attachment can be disrupted through no fault of mom because domestic abuse disrupts mother-infant bonding and abusers may even seek to do so out of envy of the attention mothers give to infants.
Andrea Dworkin’s widower Prof. John Stoltenberg even surmised that the reason pregnant women are more likely to be beaten or killed when the sex of the fetus is known to be male is because batterers view their male children as metaphoric replacement penises.
Yikes! Maybe they could consider the male fetuses penis extensions instead? And: 1. I was just rereading Dworkin’s “Right Wing Women” (because tradwives) 2. You are so erudite, I really enjoy you! 3. We can always comfort ourselves with Sapolsky, “Determined” which renders this and every other blog in the world ridiculous, because it’s Turtles All the Way Down! Yay, no personal responsibility or freedom! Grin!
When it comes to my taste in primatologists, I think I’m a bigger fan of Richard Wrangham than Robert Sapolsky.
Their conflicting opinions of whether humans evolved as monogamous or not is only one of the reasons I favor Wrangham. Sapolsky leans to the view that monogamy is an artificial social construct (making it absurd and even cruel to expect it from a partner) while Wrangham believes humans evolved to prefer that their partners be monogamous even if not every individual intends to play by the same rules. Furthermore, Wrangham believes that men use their greater physical strength and agency in the world to enforce this one-sided monogamy.
Beyond that, I’ve always liked how Wrangham’s concepts seem to be backed up by human history, like the idea that, in a historical sense, women have always faced far more violent consequences for suspected infidelity than men.
Thank you! Would you recommend “The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution” by Richard Wrangham, or ?
Haven’t read it yet but it’s on my cold weather reading list. Maybe you can read the book first and recommend it to me? 😉
Basically everything I’ve ever read from Wrangham carries at least a few seismic realizations that turn out to be more politically relevant than I could have guessed.
Someone once said that “facts cluster around a good theory” and I always feel like Wrangham’s theories breed litters of accompanying revelations about a wide range of seemingly unrelated things. Eventually you start realizing that Wrangham’s concepts fit elegantly with the ideas of other great humanist thinkers, contributing to a kind of unified sense of ethics and reality.
Long explanation of how Wrangham’s theory on the evolution of monogamy in humans fits very satisfyingly with Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theory like finding the missing piece of a jigsaw.
Thank you! I reserved it @ library and will report back. I too enjoy synthesizing concepts from a variety of fields, sometimes stunning! (Nonfiction geek here.) Total tangent: have you read “Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil” by Paul Bloom? I imagine you would like it!
Haven’t heard of Origin of Good and Evil but will look it up, thanks. 😀
HoAC…there is a question I’ve had for my 30 years with #2 cheater and maybe you might help as you seem to have done some research? When we dated #2 was mostly respectful. As soon as we got married he started to handle me as an object. He was married before. 2 kids, a 17 year old father and after that marriage failed I was next. Anyway, from then on he rarely handled me affectionately but always sexually. Grabbing at me constantly like a High school teenage boy. At first it was cute and perhaps expected for a newly Wed. But it got worse and worse until 10 years in he grabbed me ALL THE TIME and I could never ever hug or touch him without him insisting I touch him sexually. Insisted all men were like him and I was abnormal for pushing away and feeling like a vending machine. What is that? After porn and massage places he was early ED and then it got coercive and mean…hurtful and scary. Until he jumped a coworker and it went to HR. Since it was always my fault and I was the abnormal one…I could never find out if all men are gropping and self focused 17 year olds..impotent young and then even more gross? I don’t know but no one can answer that question..so far.
When you say he “jumped” a coworker, I take it you mean he attempted to sexually assault a woman. So what is that? A rapist.
Of course all rapists think all other men are secretly rapists or else how would they live with themselves? But I imagine that, for every Ted Bundy, there are millions who go around with the same dark fantasies but never act on them. Something that could probably use more study is the devastating, terrifying, haunting experiences of women like you who lived in proximity to men with compulsive, destructive fantasies that they may not necessarily have fully acted out in a murderous sense or at least not successfully.
My X told me he was raped by a woman coworker who was employed in the cafeteria. He told me every man has had this happen or it was attempted by raving woman on the job. I asked him some intimate questions because he had ED pretty seriously…and the answers I got did not add up and made me ill. He was in the middle of an HR review on this D day so I did get his boss in the phone. HR blamed both of them and called it consensual and they were both disciplined with one day off the job. Years before this same X had also kissed my daughter ( his step daughter) on the neck as a good night. She told me and I lectured him on his behavior but didn’t leave then. This time, almost to late I put 2+2 together and filed for an emergency divorce. I knew he was compulsive he had rage and our home bristled with weapons. This man, unknown to me, had had strange woman at massage places and who knows what else. Thank you for hearing me on this horrible story of my innocent ignorance that I could be married to such a creep. No man wants to hear it – not the pastors, Elders, most of the church leaders..and woman can’t believe this sweet quiet man could be a perpetrator. So alone I am, but I knew the inner truth of evil under wraps. My X married quickly to a woman in the US but not our culture and is out giving testimonies on forgiveness and a new heart..a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The quiet ones can be the most lethal. I think you’re lucky you got out alive.
Yes I am the most grateful of anyone I know, ever.
My xs must both be blocked 100%. No tears to ruin my days.
Today CL was so hilarious!! That UBT!!! Where do you find lepkuchen in March! Haaaaaaa!!!
He’s blaming you for his abuse. He hurts you because he thinks your standards (how dare you expect fidelity and respect!) are ridiculous.
The lack of self-awareness of these people never fails to shock me. Your ex’s mistress just left him and he’s STILL thinking, “I can’t possibly be the problem, right? It’s all the women in my life! They’re the problem!”
Narcissists and sociopaths are never nicer than when they’re stabbing you in the back. My aunt abandoned her mother and then, when my dad stepped up and took Grandma in, came back and sued Dad in an attempt to bankrupt him.
Auntie was bizarrely sweet to our family every time we saw her at the courthouse. When Grandma died, she showed up at the funeral with a paper chain she’d made that she said represented family bonds, and insisted we take a family photo holding it. Her lawyers filed another motion the next day with more allegations and wild demands concerning Grandma’s estate.
These people are insane. Don’t waste too much time trying to understand how their minds work, just try to stay away from them. If you’re legally allowed to block your ex and stick only to the parenting app, I would do that.
“Narcissists and sociopaths are never nicer than when they’re stabbing you in the back.”
Very true for a certain breed of them.
Apologies are easy. Talk is cheap. Cheater talk is the cheapest of all.
Judge them by their actions…and court filings.
My own cheater expressed all sorts of regret and blah blah blah. He said he hoped I’d do well in life and still cared about me. That was before he tried to screw me during the divorce proceedings.
They’re all alike.
p.s. I put up a modest Christmas tree two months after he fessed up to the multiyear affair [after 35 years of a mirage (thanks, VH)] and left because he thought he would “be happier with her” and had to “listen to his soft voice of defiance.” The man who claimed to be upset about hurting me seemed to get angry that I’d put up a tree. Yes, how dare we try to be merry without him.
Mine also got pissy about the xmas tree I put up the first year he was gone. We have kids. Of course I was putting up a tree. I’m going to deny my kids a tree because their father is a cheating FW? WHAT? And hey, I enjoy christmas trees myself. Why should I not indulge?
I think his issue was that we would have these traditions without him. But what did he expect? HE had a years long affair. He also complains that he misses the pets. Amongst other things. When he had an affair what did he EXPECT to happen? It boggles my mind.
And to be clear, while this is absolutely a case of fuck around and find out, when I ask “what does he expect?” I’m not saying it angrily or like “he deserves this pain”. I mean, yes I am frequently angry and yes he deserves this pain. But moreso, just really what did he think would happen when he ended the marriage? Me having a tree in my home that our kids enjoy, that he did not helpput up, that he doesn’tget to sit under and enjoy is a very normal thing.
He could have had a tree at his place. He opted not to.
Didn’t you know you were supposed to spend your remaining time on earth curled up in the fetal position in a gutter plaintively crying his name? How dare you retrieve your capacity for joy or continue to make the kids central! Didn’t all his hissy fits and dark and menacing moods on special occasions train you to stop doing that?? He put a lot of effort into that Pavlovian training and yet here you are, putting up Christmas trees, making kids happy and being all la-dee-dah. Perfidious evil vixen!! 😉
Like everyone else, I’ve been unsettled by increasing negative reports about air travel lately. There are all sorts of theories about the cause (like the way neoliberalism and corporate greed typically lead to progressive declines in service and production and can foment dangerous “instrumentalism” and callousness among people working within these systems, etc.) But, whatever the case, one story was about how staff and a pilot on one flight tried to demand that a mother unhook her medically fragile toddler’s FAA-approved breathing machine for takeoff– the thing the poor child requires to live.
After her social media video about the incident went viral, the woman received what she viewed as a lame apology from the airline. The representative said, “Sorry you were frustrated…”
“Frustrated”… ew. How about terrified, shocked, traumatized and existentially horrified by the progressive decline in basic humanity demonstrated by people in authority saying, “Here, we will be tying a plastic bag over your baby’s head for fifteen minutes during takeoff. Now imagine all the other psychotically incompetent things we might pull while this tin can is soaring at 30,000 feet and have a pleasant flight.”
At the very least I view it as adding insult to injury when guilty parties patronizingly presume to name the emotions or wants or needs of their own victims. For one, there’s the fact that guilty parties invariably get these things wrong because, if these individuals had any emotional intelligence or empathic talent for correctly gauging human emotions, they likely wouldn’t have done the egregious thing to begin with. For another, guilt is ugly and so there’s a passive aggressive tendency for guilty people to either trivialize victims’ emotions and states of mind or project negative traits onto victims (“Yer so angry, vituperative and bitter!”). But even more violating is when someone who harms another takes the liberty of trying to peer into the victim’s soul– a gesture that’s normally reserved only for intimate and trusted allies.
I have a very visceral reaction to that kind of gesture when it’s done to me. It’s because the context of the situation– that someone has just done something harmful– is what prompted them to hijack the liberty if that makes sense. Like someone hits you with their car and, as they pretending to lift your bike off you, they cop a feel.
It never ceases to amaze me how they are all alike. At one point I got the same maudlin BS: “I wasn’t able to love you enough. I wasn’t able to love you the right way. You made me into a better person and I will always be grateful.” I remember replying something about if I made him into a better person, I must have failed, because he was NOT good, honest, loyal, OR faithful. I said, “better than what you are which is a cheating, lying, deceitful monster?” At that point, the fog had lifted. No more buying into his sad sausage poor me BS.
Same. He wrote to me that some day I would thank him because I would find someone who would love me the way I deserved to be loved…as if his betrayal was for my own good.
Until you actually do find that better person and the ex goes apeshit, renews the harassment campaign, interrogates the kids and starts going through your trash, right?
I chalk that fake “fly be free” largesse to being over-confident that years of dedicated and systematic frog-boiling abuse have effectively turned their former victims into asexual recluses as planned.
Oh yeah, they love to talk like that. His betrayal had some redeeming qualities, it wasn’t ALL bad. Sheesh. Delusional.
Ugh. I hated it when the ex used the court system to abuse me further. It slowed down when he found another girlfriend after the original other woman dumped him. And then he eventually stopped paying child support and alimony. I could afford to wait until the youngest graduated from high school and then I took HIM to court. He was on his 4th lawyer by then. The judge was FURIOUS with him because he could afford to write a check at any point to pay all the back support. And also because the ex said he didn’t have to pay anything because I was “cohabitating”. With my 20 year old son who was a college student. The judge reamed him for that. Asked him if he was claiming some kind of incestuous relationship. Told him in no uncertain terms that he owed the money and needed to pay it ASAP. Also had to pay my lawyer’s fees.
After that he never took me to court again. The only time I’ve heard from him since then was a few years later when he came to my house on a Christmas Eve and dropped off letters to me and the kids. I read the first sentence where he blamed me for the end of the marriage and then folded it up and put it back in the envelope. I kept the letter as evidence in case he decided to start up another round of harassment, but I’ve never read it.
You were super mighty! So glad you stood up to him AND had a good judge.
Pretty much the same. I got the wonderful Christmas Greeting each year since D-Day. They basically said how much I sucked and I made him cheat by being a horrible person. Normal people would just divorce the horrible person rather than go out and feast at the all you can eat pussy buffet. Nope, it was blame shifting and listing my faults.
During the divorce he fought everything and dragged it out as long as he could. Finally, it ended during a court ordered settlement conference when my attorney presented everything to the retired judge conducting it.
This year I got the greeting and tossed it in the trash (just junk mail). Previously, I would invite my girlfriends over for wine, snacks and snark as we went through his “greeting”!
Yeah, I got the blame shifting apology too. “I’m sorry but I tried! I really tried!” I remember thinking, you were never even honest, how is that trying? How is lying the entire time trying at all? He never tried to have a real relationship with me. It was all lies, and then more lies to manipulate me into doing what he wanted. There was never a real relationship.
That was one thing that pissed off one of his mistresses really bad. The whole “well he tried” thing. I told her point blank, “I was only with him because he lied to me. If I had known the truth about him, I would have never even spoken to him, much less dated or married him. I would have crossed the street to get away from him and spit in his general direction if I had seen him coming towards me. He only got me by lying. I could never love the person he really is. I would never even tolerate the person he is.”
And she was all “wah? wah? wah? then what was he supposed to do?! He had to lie!”
That’s like saying a man has to rape a woman because the woman said no to sex. What else could he possibly do?! She won’t consent! He had to rape her! When I brought that up, I said I didn’t consent to all this. Tricking me into it is wrong. I don’t consent, he knew I didn’t consent and would never consent so he scammed me. It’s not ok and I’m not grateful for the effort he put in to scamming me and tricking me.
Boy though, I head she sure was mad when he got arrested for being a pedo! LMAO. she defended all the other sick sh*t he was doing but I guess she had at least one moral in there and drew the line at screwing kids. I hope she feels dirty and stupid for defending him. She really should.
I remember your story. Is your ex in prison yet? I hope he’s getting everything he deserves.
Unfortunately not yet. He keeps managing to get the sentencing pushed back. the latest reason is they pushed it back to April 8 because he needs to finish physical therapy. It’s gross. I’m not in contact with anybody about it, I can only read the court notes that are publicly available. I’m so over it. I’m really hoping it finally ends on the 8th.
I’d be sorely tempted to go to the press if this asshole doesn’t end up in jail where he belongs. Of course I know from experience the punishments that come with being a whistleblower so I’m not giving directives here, just expressing my ire in case a court system let a monster like this get off scot free.
I hope so, too. Fingers crossed.
” I remember thinking, you were never even honest, ”
Right? I mean my FW told me he had lied and cheated throughout our entire marriage, how in any situation is that really trying. Or in my fws case, you lied and cheated our entire marriage, you were not acting like a dirt bag, you are a dirt bag. Unfortunately I believed the lies, until the lies became inconvenient to him, then he outed himself to me. In an effort I assume to cleanse he and his whores sins. I mean after all if you never loved your wife, of course you are free to commit adultery with abandon, while stealing your spouses property. Voila, he was not the problem, I was. If I had only been a different person, maybe more whore like, he could have loved me.
Meee meee pay attention to meeeeee!!!
Only until I find another prop though- then I’ll resume my usual bad behaviour.
Centrality and entitlement- nothing more.
I’ve been mulling over similar “non-apologies” and “non-explanations” recently. It all comes off as “sorry you got hurt”, not “what I did was wrong.” Apologies are commitments to change, but I suppose that was lost on the Fuckwitian Culture.
I was of course gobsmacked in our case here by the coda: the “oh by the way” taking our friend here back to court. Like, why open attempting to be all sweet only to hit harder with some more evil?
Oh wait. I answered my own question.
I remember getting the combo of “I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you wanted (after all)” followed by “I love differently.” The tangle of what to them amounts to be “logical reason” is quite perplexing. It still all boils down to the same thing: “horrors are OK as long as I am the one doing them.”
I hope our friend here absolutely mauls this idiot in court. Hell, depending on the date and where it is, I may be inclined to come watch.
Stay Mighty!
You answered that very well. I think there’ a sadistic need to maximize the effects of the coming blows by building up hopes or positive expectations– the old set ’em up and knock ’em down/ kiss of death thing. But that just makes it funnier when former victims become so meh and detached that none of it has any effect anymore.
Dear UBT – When you digest bullshit for a living you are bound to pop a sprocket now and again. Take care of yourself – you deserve ALL the cookies.
Dear Heather’s FW- kthxbye
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the democracy you wanted and needed when I led a coup d’etat, suspended civil rights and press freedoms for decades, embezzled $27m from public coffers, detained and disappeared thirty thousand people and stole their children.” — Augusto Pinochet
I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the the normal lifespan you wanted and needed when I strangled and bludgeoned you to death and repeatedly raped your corpse.” — Ted Bundy