UBT: ‘It Has Nothing to Do with You’
“It has nothing to do with you.”
That single sentence was sent to the Universal Bullshit Translator. One Stupid Shit Cheaters Say cliche, so much to unpack.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
You’re nothing to me.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Do not interfere with my unfettered access to cake.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
My actions have no consequences. Well, none to me anyway.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
I never think of you when I fuck other people. What matters is what’s in my head — my fantasy self, my centrality, my secret double life. You’re in the Chump compartment. You’re just one of 17,548 compartments. My compartments never mix. Like the toddler whose meat can’t touch the vegetables on his plate? You’re Brussel sprouts.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Did I make you a promise? Psych!
“It has nothing to do with you.”
You’re taking that STD, missing money, and humiliation awfully personally. You should get some help for that.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Do you have needs? Wants? Desires? Those have nothing to do with me.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
What I feel for Schmoopie has nothing to do with how I feel for you. Could you switch this laundry out and fetch me a Hot Pocket?
“It has nothing to do with you.”
If you do it across state lines, it doesn’t count.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
It actually doesn’t. Cheating has everything to do with me and my fucked up character. You’re not responsible for my sense of entitlement. Can’t fix it. That’s on me and why would I give up cake for consequences?
“It has nothing to do with you.”
(The chump says as they hand me divorce papers.)
Enjoy that new life that has Nothing to do with me.
***
This one ran previously.
It has nothing to do with you…because I didn’t actually love you.
It has nothing to do with you…because I don’t love anyone that much, just enough to get what I need or want. Nothing to do with what you need or want…’cuz this relationship has nothing to do with you. Got it. ???? So very nice to have been in a one-way street marriage with ya! ????????
It has nothing to do with you… I mean: Who are you? Peones and servants are supposed to work invisibly you know… Do I know you? Ain’t Alexa your name?
“It has nothing to do with you” extends to divorce proceedings…
My credit card/bank statements have nothing to do with you
Where or who I’m living with has nothing to do with you
How our money has been managed has nothing to do with you
My relationship with my children has nothing to do with you
My relationship with my business partner (who co-owns ex’s business) has nothing to do with you
My business’ books/record/finances (even though ex is having a long term affair with business partner) have nothing to do with you
The list goes on and on. Forever if you have children and then grandchildren. Entitlement?????
Hi Rebecca do you have a photo (cute btw) because you’re a patreon? Do you get to post somewhere else instead of on Facebook? I just signed up as a CL Patreon & I don’t understand how it works at all. ????????????♀️
ExLifeLessons,
Took a bit to figure out how to do the gravatar. I knew I wanted a pic of walking on hot coals but the picture comes out tiny.
So glad you’ve signed up as a patreon!!!!!
I am one and am proud to support this blog which keeps us all going. Only way I have found to honor and thank Chump Lady ❤️
Thanks for getting back to me. I’ll try the gravatar. Walking on coals is pretty much what we’ve all been through! ????
A photo shows up if you have a gravatar. https://en.gravatar.com Or have another user profile on WordPress. And thank you for the blog support!
Thank you back! I look forward to your posts every day & can’t wait to read them on Mondays! ☺️
It has nothing to do with you because my infantile brain remains in a selfish state, unable and unwilling to empathize with anyone. I wantonly discard people like a psychopath. You have been discarded and no longer exist.
(See: disordered as f***)
“It has nothing to do with you.”
I agree that this is abusive minimization. Chumps are little specks that mean…nothing. They weren’t thought of at all. #ouch #totallyerased #noconsequencesforFW
That said, I actually think I may have preferred this line to the one that insinuated that I, too, was to blame for the affair. “You, Spinach, weren’t so perfect either.” What? “Yes, I cheated but…” Always the big “BUT.”
I also might have liked hearing that she didn’t mean anything to him. Instead, he told me that he wanted to marry her. He’d chosen her over me. I didn’t measure up. “I think I’ll be happier with her,” were his exact words.
Whether chumps are told that they were considered and then rejected or not considered at all hurts like hell.
“It’s like, 95% my fault and 5% your fault.”
Even in the depths of the pick-me dancing, I knew that was rubbish and told him so.
“I think I’ll be happier with her,” were his exact words.
But Spinach, even that statement is all about him and his own happiness. She never mattered any more than you did.
Yes, I was blamed for EVERYTHING that had happened in his life, as if I am some all-powerful being who controls the universe. The affair was my fault, his failed dreams were my fault, his health problems were my fault, our financial troubles were my fault, his depression was my fault, his abuse of me was my fault.
He also used the “I cheated, but…”. Apparently, the fact that I was unable to finance his life so he could be a filmmaker was tantamount to cheating. Not telling him he was wonderful and amazing every day, was the same as cheating. Not giving him a blowjob every day was the same as cheating. Talking to his family was the same as cheating. “YOU BETRAYED ME FIRST” was his constant cry.
FW constantly held up OW as better than me. Even if it was demonstrably false, and quite ridiculous (“can you blame me for wanting to be with someone who is emotionally stable?” he’d say, when OW was one step away from needing to go in a psych ward).
I think I would have preferred the “it has nothing to do with you” line to what I did get. It took a very long time to stop blaming myself for the demise of my marriage.
I was also blamed for everything in his life. Your ex sounds similar to mine. Mine had this expectation I would fully support us and he’d never have to work. And I’d also be a 50s style housewife and a sex robot. Because, of course.
I have a funny story about that though. My ex FW had a bum knee. So he wanted us to sign up for a rock climbing gym but… he had to have knee surgery. I said ok, well can you do it before your surgery? He said no. I said ok, we can sign up as soon as you recover from it. He says ok.
A little while before his surgery he throws in my face I wouldn’t sign up for the rock climbing gym with him. I say I thought you couldn’t physically do it right now. He glares at me and hobbles away.
He brought that up at least a dozen times, angry at me because I apparently REFUSED to sign up with him. And every single time I’d say, “Are you ready to do it? Let’s go sign up!” And he’d get angry because he can’t do it and that’s also somehow my fault.
He even complained to friends about it. I wouldn’t sign up for a rock climbing membership with him that he wouldn’t sign up for because he couldn’t physically do it. I guess I was supposed to sign up for it alone? LOL I don’t know but it makes me laugh now. Literally everything was my fault. They probably blamed us for the weather too.
OMG KatieP, the blame for everything! How I remember that, and waking up not sure what I needed to apologise for that day. The weather? His mood? His job (or lack of)? The burnt toast? I was so very worn down by all of that, no wonder it felt being let out of prison when the divorce became final. I danced joyously by myself around my (all mine!) little house at 3am that day, with a bottle of champagne in my hand! I literally felt light as air…
“Abusive minimization” is the perfect descriptor. The phrase is a way for them to say “my secret sex life is mine alone,” which is nothing more, in my opinion, than self-serving self-gaslighting, if they don’t actually believe their own claim, in which case, they have revealed themselves to be of profoundly disordered character, and someone to flee from and go no contact with.
Minimization, of course, goes hand in hand with those other tactics, like false equivalencies like that contained in “you weren’t perfect, either,” in which our supposed faults are held to be the equivalent to–or drove them to– their cheating.
Yet more evidence that we can “trust that they suck” and that we made the right decision in divorcing them.
Good comment.
????
Yep, either way chumps are nothing. In most cases designated to nothing by the person we loved, fussed over, and were loyal to. Certainly in my case. I trusted him, and would have defended him against anyone; and he knew it and threw it in my face. In fact he even made a public joke in front of my friend three months before Dday that Susie wouldn’t believe he was fooling around unless he told me.
It was only in retrospect that I remembered the smirk on his face when he said it. But in real time I also felt a spidey thing when he said it, especially given the circumstances. I wish I had not spackled it over. It wouldn’t have saved the marriage, but it would have spared me about three months of horrible treatment.
Spinach, it hurts at first. So much. And the trauma is terrible. But once you recognize that FWs are disordered… that they are chasing happiness like children (adulting is hard so they escape) and rewriting history —remember all the work you did in the marriage? I remember doing everything for him… taking care of the house, the kid, my appearance, every meal, every date, all travel, begging for s*x… BUT he doesn’t remember anything you did.
They don’t miss you and discard you because they literally gaslight THEMSELVES.
My point is, once you get perspective and are free of a FW, you are thankful. You realize it wasn’t you. You realize the AP isn’t “better” (in fact, they are really f***ed for winning the sparkly turd). A FW’s opinion has no reflection at all on a Chump.
Hi MichelleShocked .. for most of my marriage my husband didn’t initiate sex with me.. I couldn’t figure out why … I didn’t know why. And then when our house built and there were no more major “life tasks” I think I put my foot down and just said – if this is your idea of a good life and marriage (without you initiating sex) then I disagree – it’s crap and I want out. Later I find out he probably had already started sleeping with a co-worker who he is still now with. But I still find it hard to let go – even though I knew I couldn’t continue if he wasn’t going to initiate sex… for years he told me “I’ll fix it” but he never did. I so hope you are right.. that with no contact and time, my perspective will change and I’ll stop wanting him and my old life back .. with my kids with me all the time, finances intact and my social life intact.
My ex didn’t either, I completely understand what you’re going through. What so many of us are going through. I responded to Amazon Chump below too because she’s so right. You will one day find peace. You’ll see that it never ever had anything to do with you. You’re so much better off without someone like that in your life. Hang in there. It truly does get better.
You will find peace. And the day will come when you realize that it really didn’t have anything to do with you. It was all about him from the beginning. I’m now 8 years from DDay and I can really see him for the pathetic person he is. He’s a victim of his own bad choices that he has made throughout his entire life. Every time I hear (through my son) of another carnival shit show that he’s going through, I see the fallout of all those bad decisions that he made 45 years ago. It’s so sad. There’s an expression, “the sins of the father are to be laid on the children”. And the repercussions from all those sins are felt by everyone, especially kids and grandkids. The fuckwit didn’t just fuck up his marriage and immediate family. But he’s just still too into himself to see the fallout was caused by his own actions and continues to be. I know without a doubt that it really was never about me, and to this day, it’s still not about me. How do I know? Well since I left a cheater and gained a life, my life is void of the drama that I dealt with for 30 years. What changed? It wasn’t me. I’m still the same person that I’ve always been. What changed is that I no longer have a fuckwit in my life. I’m so glad he’s not my problem anymore.
Amen, amen, amen to everything you said. It never was about you, it had everything to do with him.
The axe shrugs and forgets; the tree remembers. If it has nothing to do with me then why am I scarred, Axe?
……and if you want a tree to bear fruit, you strike the trunk with an ax. A gardening truth that I think I should share here and I think also applies to chumps as an addendum to what you shared…..
❤️
#montydonrocks
#gardenersunite
Even if I’m able to “bear fruit” following stressful experience, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. Let them read about it in books instead. While I think trauma can be turned to wisdom, we can’t forget that a lot of people don’t survive the axe. Either way, no thanks should be offered to abusers/axe-wielders whose intentions weren’t educational. Any credit for growth following trauma goes to the survivor who survived in spite of abusers and in spite of trauma.
Feeling picked on.
Thanks.
And lectured.
Have a nice evening.
Ooh, thanks for bringing up the axe/tree proverb. Anyone know the origins of this expression… African? I just know it’s old and not often heard while it should be a standard part of popular understanding. If you’re facing down a gaslighting abuser or negative bystanders, the proverb-comback beats having to blather out a quote from the obscure annals of victimology to make the same point. From “Severe Wife Assault and Deindividuated Violence” by criminologist Donald Dutton:
“Ganley (1980) has confirmed the tendency of women victims to have comprehensive recall of the battering incident (since their lives depended on being able to defend themselves) and of the batterers to blank it out. When I started to collect questionnaire data on abusive men, I found the same issue with fuzzy memories. (p. 91, Dutton, The Domestic Assault of Women: psychological and criminal justice perspectives 2001)”
The more I’ve had to ward off people’s complicated bullshit moral relativism and gymnastic abuse apologias, the more I appreciate old expressions that crush a lot of bulky debates down to compact diamonds that help you think on your feet. I wonder if that’s exactly why helpful old proverbs which boil down concepts of abuse of power tend to fall out of fashion and start disappearing from the languages of cultures that are built on abuse of power. 1001 philosophical thoughts…
Yes, I do some volunteer work related to abused women, and I’ve seen that. The women have all the details and can write pages and pages when the police need a complete account, but the men just say that it didn’t happen or rewrite critical details (“I didn’t strike her face, I put my hand up to wipe away her tears”).
Part of my ex’s game was to cast me as a crazy woman so no one would believe me. I decided to embrace that and remove anyone from my life who believed that lie. Even his attorney came around and would comment to mine about his “delusional client” during closeout.
Elsie– if you’ve read Donald Dutton’s research as part of training, you might have heard of “neutralization.” It sounds like you’ve seen it up close: https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/societies/societies-09-00046/article_deploy/societies-09-00046.pdf?version=1560246670
Neutralization is kind of a means of being “crazy by design.” Actual crazy people don’t need to apply a technique to lose touch with reality like criminals do. Neutralization seems to be the whitewashing self-talk that a range of perpetrators use to change the narrative, alter history and change the identity of victims in order to cleanse themselves of stigma and any vestiges of guilt so they appear wholesome and trustworthy to the unsuspecting. In other words, in order to appear innocent, one must actually train oneself to feel innocent, a bit like method acting. Researchers speculate that it’s dual purpose: dulling conscience of past crimes and paving the way for future ones. Nifty mental trick.
The phrase is of Turkish origin.
Cool, thanks.
The axe doesn’t remember the tree it struck down. It’s moved on to chopping at many trees in the woods.
Just saw your quote from the Star Wars show Andor! ????????????
Nice analogy.
The axe would answer, “What scar? There’s nothing there.” #gaslighting
Or, better yet, the axe won’t answer at all. #silenttreatment
“It has nothing to do with you,” seems to be their way of saying, “It’s none of your business.” which is another way of saying, “I don’t want to tell the truth because I’ll have to face consequences.”
I got the : It’s none of your business” with a little tap, tap on my knee, I suppose to placate me.
This was truly the moment I knew my marriage was doomed, but I stupidly hung on for a few more months.
My question to him to garner that reply:
“Do you have feelings for your co worker?”
I think in his mind it had everything to do with me.
I wasn’t making him happy anymore and he’d eventually tell me: I feel good around her.
Yup, another drug.
Idiot.
Of course cheaters feel good around side pieces the same way exploitative companies feel great around scab workers who don’t unionize. Agreeing to be a side piece is the same as crossing a picket line to steal a union job.
Yep and you can bet your bottom dollar that if they had been betrayed it would have been THEIR business.
Absolutely, susie lee. FW was so indignant when I wanted to divorce rather than forgive, but told me to my face that he didn’t think he could forgive if I cheated. And to think I still sometimes doubt whether he’s a narcissist ????♀️
“It’s none of your business.”
Yep! This is it.☝️
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”–Wizard of Oz.
I had frequently called my stbx “The Great and Powerful Oz” (to his face). He didn’t think that was funny. He doesn’t have a sense of humor that he’s aware of.
This requires bursting into spontaneous song…
We’re off to see the Jizzard
The gaslighting Jizzard of Oz
We hear he is a schiz of a jizz
If ever a jizz there was
If ever, oh ever a jizz there was
The Jizzard of Oz is one because
Because, because, because, because, because
Because of the pervicious things he does
We’re off to see the Jizzard
The backstabbing Jizzard of Oz
Yeah, it doesn’t have anything to do with me, but I still have to pay the consequences of your bullshit. So, sorry if I do take it personal.
My favorite phrase along with “I really didn’t mean to hurt you”. Uhhhhhhh
My favorite excuse was “I thought it would all come out after I was dead.”
My come backs would be:
-my relationship with my vibrator has nothing to do with you
-those looks you get around town have nothing to do with you
-the kids leaving the room whenever you’re around has nothing to do with you
-the std you gave me has nothing to do with you
Just kidding! In relationships it involves the partner. Narcissists gotta be able to see themselves as awesome though!
It has nothing to do with you.
He earned that shitty life all by himself with no one to blame. My grass is greener.
Love this. Yep, if we were nothing before the divorce, then of course we are nothing after. They get to own it all.
And sometimes if you are lucky like I was; you get to see them humiliated in the public square. It doesn’t erase the pain, but it can sure put a bounce in your step for a bit.
My fw didn’t dare say a word to me about his demotion and loss of office and his relationship with the mayor. He knew if he did he would get a bit ole “paybacks a bitch” right up his ass. (that was his favorite saying before his house of cards came tumbling down)
Susie lee, “payback’s a bitch” is hilarious. Wow.
According to Schmoopie’s husband, well now ex-husband, she loved to say “Actions have consequences.” Indeed!
I can’t say it wasn’t satisfying when OW left FW, and his “perfect little fairytale” came to an end. Less than a month after they moved in together. He bet on the wrong horse and lost.
They don’t own it; they get to live with it. The Limited’s line was, “I don’t know what happened.”
It has nothing to do with you….because you are nothing to me.
It has nothing to do with you……but it’s all your fault.
“It has nothing to do with you” is Cheater double speak for “It actually has everything to do with you, but if I told you the truth you would see me for who I really am and I would face consequences …. and so it is far easier for me to deny you the truth.”
LFTT
My XW replied when I mentioned if she thought of me when screwing other men “I didn’t think of you at all”.
On D-day I asked exFW if he thought of me at all when OW came into his life, because I thought of him when another man was flirting with me and I decided I could never cheat on my (then)husband because I thought about how much I’d hurt him. Ex-FW just looked at me blankly. I knew the answer at that moment. I knew that I was nothing to him, so there was no need for me to pick me dance. The next day I started calling lawyers.
My XH said the exact same thing, followed by “but I have feelings for her.” Huh? No feelings for your wife?
Mine said that too. And he doesn’t understand how horrible that is to hear.
This one sinks right in to pierce the bone, CL.
It’s so true, what you say, and such a universal way of devaluing us, this phrase. It says “you, Chump, are nothing, therefore you are insignificant in the context of every other thing.”
One person doesn’t get to decide that for the world, though. 1000 people don’t get to decide that for the world. If I lived in Beverly Hills, most people around me would think badly of me because I’m a casual, decidedly unglamorous, natural-looking person. That wouldn’t make me bad. It would make me a regular person in a sea of glamour dolls.
Plop me into a bunch of trail wanderers in the Pacific Northwest and I’m literally right as rain.
If someone says I am not significant, the only actually reasonable choice is to move to a space where my presence in that space is significant in a positive way. The ONLY reasonable choice.
And there is always, always, another space, even when I can’t see it from where I stand.
This is an enormous world. It may be a journey to get there, but there is always another place we can go. So, if you aren’t where you’re welcomed, at least try traveling away from the jerk who is telling you so and toward a new place that has more to offer. Hang out there for a while before you decide whether that jerk had a solid point. ❤️
Words of wisdom Amiisfree! And they apply across all of life relationships: friendships, work, hobbies, even family of origin! Thank you ????
It has nothing to do with you-
(My relationship with my children)
I have a good eraser pad, it’s no problem just scratching you out of the picture, and subbing Schmoopie in your place. It changes nothing at all and our family continues on without a hitch. Why is everyone being so damn difficult with this simple adjustment?!
It has nothing to do with you-
I just fell in love with someone amazing, why can’t you be happy for me?
It has nothing to do with you-
It’s not another woman( like the one I have been porking for the last 5 years). I am a complex person, needing constant change and experiences. We’ve grown apart. You seem to care about our family and being the evolved and complex being I am, have advanced past such confining scenarios in life.
It has nothing to do with you –
Divorces happen. Why can’t you accept this and move on?
Interesting cheating news:
https://www.vox.com/culture/23387679/cheating-scandals-adam-levine-nia-long-try-guys-ned-fulmer
Though the Vox article makes a few solid points, the thing that gets up my craw about some of the pseudo-feminist takes on adultery in the article is this seemingly endless modern campaign to remove any and all responsibility from affair partners in the name of anti-slut-shaming. No one’s considering that we could just forego slut-shaming and gender-specificity and call them assholes and creeps.
‘“At the time, I was young, I was naive, and, I mean, quite frankly, I feel exploited,” Stroh stated in her TikTok about the alleged affair. “I was very easily manipulated.” Other onlookers expanded on Stroh’s point, including actress Emily Ratajkowski. “I don’t understand why we continue to blame women for men’s mistakes, especially when you’re talking about 20-something-year-old women dealing with men in positions of power who are twice their age,” Ratajkowski stated in a pointed, since-deleted TikTok. “The power dynamic is so skewed, it’s ridiculous. It’s predatory, it’s manipulative.”’
As a lifelong feminist I find the “young and naive” justification for knowing participation in betrayal (that, let’s face it, typically includes embezzling marital assets) pretty offensive. If we were talking about actual children, the cheater would be tried as a pedophile. But moreover it supposes that women are so fragile they can’t withstand criticism for their actions. Plus it relies on the icky tradition of calling women and thinking of women as “girls” beyond childhood. Never mind that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at 20, Alexander Hamilton was Washington’s aide de camp at 22, Nelly Bly exposed snake pit asylums at 23, William Pitt became UK’s prime minister at 24 and most serial killers are in their early to mid twenties. If you’re old enough to get 25 to life for murder, you’re old enough to know better. If you’re old enough to be charged with statutory rape for having sex with a minor, you’re old enough to know better. If you’re old enough to be credited in history with turning the tide of the American revolution at 18 (Marquis de Lafayette), you’re old enough to know better.
Maybe the problem today is that we’re deferring technical maturity for adults in order to give them more time to aimlessly text and scroll. But I smell double standards lurking within double standards. Another problem in the way the article frames participation in adultery is the assumption that most side pieces are female when it’s actually men who are statistically more likely to mate poach. And never mind that chumped men are statistically more likely to try to attack or kill their rivals. Speaking of “hating” the side piece, that’s a more common and extreme form of “hate” that’s not being addressed. But aside from that, the view in the article doesn’t address traditional, maybe sometimes grudging admiration for the “prowess” of men who steal women from other men– an admiration which presupposes scheming, competition and ego are involved– which should be just as offensive as the double standard that male adulterers get admiration and their female side bits get only contempt. It begs the question of why we need to remove suspicions of scheming intent and competition from she-poachers? Because those traits which, on their flip-sides, are often admired as positive when applied to success in business and other ventures when men posses them, aren’t viewed as positive when women possess them? Removing suspicion of those motives from female affair partners while not bothering to do the same for male poachers seems to reflect acceptance of another double standard. Why not just generally condemn ill-directed scheming and competition and apply that to everyone and respect it in everyone when it’s aimed positively?
I’ve wondered if the whole current sex-pozzy craze for exonerating side pieces stems from pervs in high places not wanting to see the pool of potential female side dishes depleted by public condemnation. I’m not sure how feminist that is.
Anyway, it’s boggling. Besides, you know who’s actually ‘young and naive” in cheating scenarios? Any minor children in the mix. The pseudo-feminists never mention that. Or STDs, or squandered college funds, etc.
> But aside from that, the view in the article doesn’t address traditional, maybe sometimes grudging admiration for the “prowess” of men who steal women from other men– an admiration which presupposes scheming, competition and ego are involved– which should be just as offensive as the double standard that male adulterers get admiration and their female side bits get only contempt.
I re-read your post this morning – there’s a lot in it, which I strongly agree with. And now I have a Dr Hook ear-worm – ‘when you’re in love with a beautiful woman…’. Thanks 🙂
I completely agree. People need to start realizing it’s like rape. “oh, don’t slut shame the naive young woman who knowingly helped expose you to her STDs and vaginal secretions without your consent because it turned her on!”
It’s like seriously? Consent is oh so important but not for wives? Once a woman gets married she’s no longer worthy of the right to consent and other women should help abuse her?
They know they’re hurting someone. They get off on it. They’re bad people. Abusers should be shamed.
Some most assuredly do ‘get off on it’, but the expression, “It has nothing to do with you” is probably just as applicable for the affair partner as well. She (or he) doesn’t even think of the chump and/or children at home.
Preach it.
Wife Guys = boo!
Try Guys = yay!
https://youtu.be/t6fIp7mMJ90
Child development professionals report that between the age of 0-2 years a child makes the differentiation between self and others as separate individuals. Closer to age 2 empathy develops whereby a child recognizes that those separate from self are distressed and the child will often attempt to soothe others.
If nature and nurture during this formative period was absent or dysfunctional and this developmental milestone never occurs in a child, that child is effectively emotionally handicapped forward. Interpersonal relations with others would then become like feeling your way through the dark as an adult. Very immature coping skills in adulthood would be the result.
We Chumps experienced their results. They know they’re grasping in the dark and have no tools to deal. Saying, “It has nothing to do with you”, or “It’s not you; it’s me”, is closer to the truth than we know.
Funny how (in their warped minds) their choices and behavior have nothing to do with us, but our choices and behavior in response have everything to do with them. Centrality centrality centrality.
“It has nothing to do with you” because I only think of myself! Never once did I consider you. Or the family. Or my reputation. Or my finances. Or my self respect.
Nope, it had nothing to do with me, apart from housing some scum that I would never want around me and my kids. But hey, he was “still coming home because people in affairs don’t even come home”, like he told me.
#massive favor that he can stick up his arse#.
Also, it was mega handy to have a scapegoat at home, who did everything “wrong”, vs the OW who was perfect, since she favored him over her own husband and was bonking him in carparks at lunch. #kibbles powers”.
So now it has really nothing to do with me. Somebody else can keep this creep entertained. Easy.
I forget which member of CN who said cheating is like “the endless sea of all my fault.” I think affairs are all about having a scapegoat for both parties. Orgasms aren’t as tingly without human sacrifice. It’s the same construct as racism. Can’t be “higher than” unless I put someone else down and lower.
Both *cheating* parties– FWs and witting Schmoops. I’m not implying chumps– who never signed up for any of it– require scapegoats.
Your line about the scapegoat at home is enlightening. I’ve had an epiphany about that. I was a total great scapegoat for all his sadz! Still am in his mind but at least I don’t live with the sociopath.
“It has nothing to do with you”…was said to make me feel better. Because he didn’t blame ME for making him cheat. No shit, Sherlock.
Yet somehow he didn’t take responsibility either. Their brains are nonsensical.
After four years out from D-day and approaching two years divorced, I have little memory of the specific excuses. I wrote them down in three journals, but haven’t re-read them.
It feels a bit like the political ads. Opponents shown in their least flattering images, quotes taken out of context, rampant “what aboutism”. After a while, I just turn it off because I understand that it is language intended to devalue and divide.
Great analogy.
“It feels a bit like the political ads. Opponents shown in their least flattering images, quotes taken out of context, rampant “what aboutism”. After a while, I just turn it off because I understand that it is language intended to devalue and divide.”
Hail to the mute button.
This is one of those unintentionally true things that sometimes slips out of a cheater’s mouth.
Cheating has nothing to do with the chump. Whatever reasons-for-cheating the cheater spews, that’s not why they did it. They did it because that’s who they are. Cheaters gonna cheat, liars gonna lie.
Heard “its not about you” line many ddays, and my second fav line was “it made me feel like I ruined my life”. Nothing thus far has ruined his life as he waltzed off with his new found freedom, especially in his own mind.
*Enjoy that new life that has Nothing to do with me.
It has nothing to do with you because… I win!
Wish I was quick enough to have used this line when he said that to me.
“Enjoy that new life that has Nothing to do with me.” FABULOUS!
OMG Brussels sprouts, you are KILLING it today, Tracy!
Conversely, I was told, “It has nothing to do with her.”
He blindsided me, called off our wedding, left me and the dogs after 7 years together, all within 3 months of meeting her, his married secretary. Like so many chumps, I wasn’t aware anything was wrong. Our days were filled with laughter.
“She’s amazing. She is worth giving up everything for. She brings color to my world. I am going to marry her and have babies with her.”
And yet, “It has nothing to do with her.”
Wow, how super sparkly– he found a mate-poacher who’s also an adulterer. Where can I sign up for one of those to color my world?? (thump, thump, thump, running off to a crack den to find me one).
Ah, yes. The whole it has nothing to do with you which goes hand in hand with it’s none of your business.
This reminds me of going to the beach with a “friend” when my divorce was fresh. Other women, including her, had heard every private detail of my life. Any time he had any type of issue with me, he ran to a woman to cry to. They knew about how I orgasmed. If I had an ingrown hair, ew gross, they knew. I had zero privacy throughout my entire marriage. And then there’s the stuff he made up about me. One of those being that my vaginal juices are so acidic they cause burns. Seriously.
See, he was a chronic masturbator. But I didn’t realize how bad it was at the time. He would masturbate until the skin on his penis was bloody and raw, and then it would scab over. I thought he was having a reaction to laundry detergent. LOL I went through so many detergents, so many body washes trying to help him. He went to the doctor, it wasn’t an STD, they gave him creams. They didn’t help. Then he started blaming me. I went to the doctor, the doctor told me nothing was wrong with me and I was not causing that. I started thinking, what if it’s an allergy? You can become allergic to anything, what if he’s become allergic to me? It was pretty awful.
Meanwhile, he has a disgusting scab covered dick and he still wants to screw other women. So he’s telling them I’m some sort of evil gorgon who burns men’s penises with my acid vag. And apparently it worked, those women let him put his open wound penis inside them. *shudder* I wouldn’t. His sores affected our sex life because I wouldn’t have sex with him when he was like that. I didn’t think it was healthy for him or me to involve open wounds in sex. Maybe that’s why I didn’t catch anything from him… but some of his little girlfriends did.
But anyways, with that backstory in mind. Right when everything was fresh I went to the beach with a “friend.” I had just been finding all these things out and was horrified. She told me how much he did actually love me and I told her sorry, that does not make any sense in the reality of what’s been happening behind my back and now to my face for years and years. She tells me she knows he loves me because she knows about the vacation he’s been planning for our 21st anniversary and how much I would have loved it. Earlier that same summer, I planned a vacation with our family and her family and I asked him to help me choose between two cabins and he yelled at me over it. That’s how much he loved planning vacations. So I was doubtful. The man can’t plan a trip to the store.
So I ask, oh really? What vacation was he planning?
And she literally gasps at me and says, “I can’t tell you that! It’s none of your business!”
Right. That says it all, doesn’t it? My whole 20 year marriage was none of my business but it was her business and the business of any and every other woman who would give him attention. I’m so glad I got out of that weird marriage between him and every whore he encountered. I don’t know why I was ever tied legally to it but thankfully I managed to severe those ties. I hope they’re all very happy in their weird plural marriage that had my name on the certificate but had nothing to do with me and was never any of my business. I’m so glad I live in a reality that actually makes sense now and don’t deal with any of those people anymore.
It’s a miracle you kept your sanity surrounded by such a cluster of crazies.
Did he also have “penile shrinkage” from “inelastic scar tissue” due to excessive wanking? Who knew that’s actually a thing. https://www.lybrate.com/question/5916198992/im-18-10-inch-penis-erect-due-excessive-masturbation-penis-3-inch-erection-feel-tired-get-erection-back-normal-size-believe-not-10-inch-penis-3-inch-getting-hard5916198992?lpt=PS-HF
Omg, yes! He did! I didn’t know that was an actual thing! His penis looked weird, not when we met but it got weird throughout our marriage. It looked like it had scar tissue on it and it was like he could never get a full erection anymore even on viagra but maybe it just seemed that way because it was actually smaller. Wow. He loves sex so much he destroyed his own penis. Great job FW. LOL
It’s peyronie’s disease in a nutshell. You can find a lot of clinical denials online that “peyronie’s disease”– basically scar tissue that can bend or change the shape of a penis– can be due to violent masturbation. The condition will be ascribed to other causes (sex, sports injury, etc.) that amount to the same kind of stress or injury but, at least in western or Christian countries, it’s like no one wants to come out and say it can be caused by excessive wanking. There’s some evidence that it’s associated with over-expression of certain proteins but that doesn’t take away the fact that injury causes it, particularly injury from repeat actions.
I suspect the nonsensical denial is just reactionary against traditional “moral” prohibitions of masturbation that no modern researcher or clinician in sexual health wants leveled at them. But clinicians and researchers should probably be less concerned about appearing puritanical and bringing back the dark old days and more concerned about the fact that we may be entering a new and different dark age: In the age of streaming porn, up to 30% of men between 18 and 30 are experiencing chronic ED (compared to 3% prior to the advent of streaming porn) and peyronie’s would logically be on the rise because a major officially stated cause is trying to have sex with a weak erection. That also means that trying to masturbate with a weak erection is just as much of a risk. ED epidemic= peyronie’s epidemic?
Clinicians should also be more concerned with the fact that the association between birth defects and stillbirths and Viagra use isn’t clear. There have been a few scary findings that haven’t been fully explored. Generations of men of child-bearing age who can only get it up with Viagra and the current dip in live births? Add to this the shitstorm of synthetic hormone disruptors and “forever chemicals” found in all cord blood worldwide that are charged with reducing sperm count and motility. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich It’s like the plot to Children of Men.
I probably should have included a source for the ED/chronic porn association: https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/are-you-watching-too-much-porn-20130821/
I remember a professor chanting, “It shares citations to back its claim or else it gets the hose again.”
Like denials about the link between peyronie’s and wanking, there are a lot of frantic denials about chronic porn use and ED. But the evidence of a link is growing (pardon pun).
UK, requirement to list income and expenses. Nothing unusual about that.
I got: ‘I’m not listing my expenses. What I spend on haircuts has nothing to do with you’.
And it wouldn’t have had anything to do with me if he’d provided even the most basic of information voluntarily. I had to issue proceedings for financial relief to get him to disclose anything which meant that he had to go into much more detail. He is very, very stupid considering that he considers himself to be a super-intelligent being.
He did say:‘it’s not you, it’s me’ when he was in sad sausage mode. But that changed quickly when he understood the financial consequences.
“But that changed quickly when he understood the financial consequences.”
Yep the plan was for me to be the only one to suffer consequences not him. Why he had it all planned out, I am sure he and whore sussed it out during pillow talk. Here is what Susie will do, (after all she has always done what I say) and you and I will be free to walk into our glorious future. Susie can deal with the fallout, she deserves it as she was not a perfect housekeeper.
“It has nothing to do with you.” Didn’t we all hear that from someone’s mouth at one point? I got it from another woman.
A related statement and straight from the cheater’s mouth: “I never intended for this to happen.” As if fucking someone else is ok, but developing feelings for them is not. So GLAD I’m out of that situation. I can’t say it enough.
On D-Day, my stbx told me “This has nothing to do with what you and I have” – referring to his use of hookers throughout our 35 year marriage.
In the next breath he said “You know, when I think about it, I probably never loved you. You were just a convenience.” Ouch. I had to forcibly remove my head from the mindf**k blender.
Ouch indeed.
My fw said to me on his exit, “I have been dating for ten years and I never loved you” I guess “dating” was what the kids were calling it back then.
But yeah with all the cheating and lying and verbal/financial abuse that was the hardest to recover from. For 21 years aside from the last threeish months I thought I was in a solid marriage, not perfect certainly; but solid and yes I thought he loved me despite my flaws as I did him.
Doesn’t really matter if it was true or not, that is what I will always remember.
“It has nothing to do with you” is like how the following quote from The Godfather is generally taken as standard wisdom in business: “It’s nothing personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.” Never mind that the consigliere in GF is talking about murder. No wonder corporate raiders and toxic industrialists destroy economies, ecology, democracy and human health while using The Godfather like the “I Ching” of corporate strategy.
It restores perspective a little to realize that not everyone accepts this even in business contexts. From an interesting article on it: https://www.lollydaskal.com/leadership/nothing-personal-its-strictly-business/
“Watching The Godfather not long ago with my teenage son, I was struck by Michael Corleone’s line “It’s nothing personal, Sonny—it’s strictly business.”
Is business really ever “nothing personal”?
Can you imagine that Steve Jobs accepted it was “just business” when he was ousted from his position at Apple, the company that had been his brainchild?
Can you imagine someone saying it to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey when he was replaced as CEO? Do you think he didn’t consider it personal?
Can you imagine trying to say it that to any of the leaders, entrepreneurs, teachers, bosses, and CEOs who have spent half of their lives at work and put their heart and soul – and who-knows-how-many years of their lives – into their work. How can anyone say it’s not personal?…We all want to be valued and recognized. And we like to know that we are making a difference when we put our heart and soul into something.
Our work reflects our personal lives, and our personal lives reflect our work.
If you have cared for your customers, it’s personal.
If you have lost sleep over a client, it’s personal
If you have gone out of your way for a colleague, it’s personal
If you stayed extra hours to help a team member, it’s personal.
What drives us each day to get up and go to work and work long hours is the fact that we think we are making a difference, contributing to the world around us.
If it wasn’t personal, then why would we even be doing it?
It’s not that you care that matters, it’s how much you care that makes a difference.
When you bring the best parts of yourself to work, life, and leadership, when you make everything you do personal and connect to your work on that level, that you find the deeper meaning that connects our humanity to everything we do.
Having a connection to our work brings our heart to what we do.”
I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it. Agree. And it took me a while to believe that.
AND
A secret sexual double life is a violation. It’s an inside job that requires an accomplice.
Traitor Ex breaking up with the Craigslist cockroach does not expunge her rap sheet and erase the fact that she accepted his invitation to assist in violating me and my child.
No matter what happens with them, she, and any other accomplices that knew about me and our daughter will remain in the top spot along with him on my Arya Stark list. It doesn’t matter if they are together or not. There is no statue of limitations on perpetrating abuse
An illicit relationship is a deliberately set up as such, and requires a committed partner(s) who are being duped. Your power in the game is stepping out of the triangle, which upsets the dynamics.
No, their emotional immaturity, lack of healthy relationship skills, psychological issues, low standards, lack of self esteem and values, dysfunctional moral compass, and missing ethics do not have anything to do with me.
…and at the same time, I think it actually also has EVERYTHING to do with a chump. Chumps are the Secret Sauce that, without which, that affair would not be that oh-so-delicious forbidden fruit.
In my case it always had “nothing to do with me”… until I started asking him too many questions/not believing his half-baked excuses and lies, then he’d bring out every fight we ever had, big or small, to blame me for what he’d bee doing. In the early discovery days, after I asked him a bunch of questions about what I’d found in his phone, he claimed I laughed at him for throwing up after he drank too much at brunch one time and that he felt so belittled by it that it sent him on a tailspin of watching too much porn and looking up hookers/saving their phone numbers for weeks afterwords to feel better. In retrospect I think he was just gaslighting me/trying to stop me from questioning him too much, because I don’t even remember this incident happening. In fact, I ran into him at the parking garage where this incident supposedly happened the other day (its close to both of our work buildings) and he was musing about how we used to go to brunch together and that he had so many happy memories of those times. I responded with “Except for the time I laughed at you for throwing up and you went into a sexual tailspin for weeks, I guess…” and he said “Oh, I don’t remember that happening at all. All I remember is how much fun we had.” Almost had to pick my jaw up off the floor when he said that because he made a huge deal about it at the time.
“he claimed I laughed at him for throwing up after he drank too much at brunch one time and that he felt so belittled by it that it sent him on a tailspin of watching too much porn and looking up hookers/saving their phone numbers for weeks afterwords to feel better.”
I can almost 100% guarantee he was already doing that, and for years, not weeks.
My ex wife actually said, (after she’d travelled to another country to be with FW and left my daughter and I, lied and said she was going to ‘break up with him’) ‘ after I caught her in a lie, got angry ‘if you tell anyone I won’t come back – I still have feelings for him, I can’t just turn the them off’
The whole thing is so entitled and disgusting – I thought if you ever caught someone cheating they would automatically end it – but I was so wrong – they just lie more and more and they threaten you with continuing the affair if you so much as question it !
The whole thing makes me sick
I got the “I am in love with him and I don’t know why”. Him being a man she started dating in 2014, broke up her first marriage for him, then tried to commit suicide during arguments with him twice (once in front of her 10 year old daughter), and finally, after marrying me saying she was in counseling and therapy, ran away from home to do drugs with him and have stoner sex with him – something she says she prefers.
“if you tell anyone I won’t come back”
That begs to be answered with; “You promise?”
“I still have feelings for him, I can’t just turn the them off”
But oh, how easily they manage to do that with their alleged feelings for us.
I think it is rare for them to end it. Most take it underground, and some of us even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time are lucky enough that they leave.
I got a straight up “It was us”.
YIKES! I guess I don’t remember the conversation where I said “US” could screw the office whore.
I got the housekeeping defense. I wish I had thought to say, you know for what you spent on whore we could have had a weekly cleaner, or the time you spent fucking whore you could have gotten up off your ass and shined up what you thought wasn’t shiny enough. I was working a full time job, going to school and still showing up for his political shit to help him get that promotion. Just wasn’t enough.
Bull shit I was a decent housekeeper, and the whore he married by several accounts made me look like Martha Stewart.
Truth is I think he was just fine fucking town whores to abandon, then he got his dick caught up in the office auger and it slowly ground him into hell.
Susie Lee,
That is exactly the point, that the reasons the FWs give us are just made up excuses—simply not true. They have no bearing on the truth. Buying bagged salad is not something to break up a marriage over. Honestly FWs are probably just choosing stuff at random to try to hurt you. The problem was NEVER your house cleaning standards. Therefore snappy comebacks about house cleaning merely show that his barbed remarks hit their target and that he is still occupying your thoughts.
Who cares what a lying liar who lies says? Once their status as a liar and cheat is established then you must logically consider the source and appropriately value their opinions.which is to say, not at all.
We chumps always take the FWs literally. We cry over the perceived injustice of their accusations. As they intend us to. We engage with them like normal rational human beings and try to address the problems they identify —but it is merely a justification, a distraction to divert us from what they are doing. Smoke and mirrors, deflection, manipulation. Or maybe just Whack-a-mole as the target keeps changing and goalposts moving while they tell us they never said what they bloody well did say. All to keep the cake and kibble supply strong, assuage the flying monkey army and do impression management for the masses. You will oblige them by acting crazy too, so they can sad sausage monkey branch their way to new supplies.
Great comment!
It has nothing to do with you.
It has to do with my genitalia and my ego. Who are you compared to friends like those?
It has nothing to do with you.
Yet you, of course, are to blame. I have found a way to make both of those assertions true. I know, I’m a genius, right?
It has nothing to do with you.
Everything is about ME ME ME ME ME!
It has nothing to do with you.
So why are you crying? You’re just too sensitive. Here, have some some flowers. I went all the way to the supermarket for them.
It has nothing to do with you.
I didn’t take money from you, or from the family, when I whisked Schmoopie off to Aruba with me. I only took it from the bank.
It has nothing to do with you.
Please don’t tell our kids or our friends. It has nothing to do with them either.
It has nothing to do with you.
You’re not a prostitute, right? So me dating those prostitutes who all adore me is about prostitutes, not you.
It has nothing to do with you.
It’s just that Jesus wants me to be happy. He loves us all, right?
It has nothing to do with you.
S/he seduced me when I was in a weak moment. The other ones did too.
It has nothing to do with you.
It has to do with manifesting the true spiritual partner I need for my journey to find serenity, higher purpose and ultimate happiness. We found it on our yoga mats. We’re starting a life coaching business to share our wisdom with the world. Bye!
It has nothing to do with you….why would my worship of my almighty penis have anything to do with you? My Penis!
Ah, yes. “It’s not about you.” Heard a lot of that.
The irony is that good people do excel at making it about others: kids, coworkers, students, stray cats, the spider we escort outside rather than smooshing.
But, it is pretty great finally to say, “it sure as hell isn’t,” and then quite thoroughly depart.
It’s rather nice to have a life in which at least some things—what to watch, what to wear, where to work, who to hang out with, which music or podcast to listen to in the car, how many people (and which ones) get to be in a marriage—are largely up to us, with input granted only to the worthy.
okay, so these aren’t exactly “it has nothing to do with you” but they are close. I moved out because you ran away from home, “I didn’t make you move out.” Therapist to ex in failed counseling session, “you need to do some deep soul searching”, ex response, “what about him.” After the IRS letter asking for back taxes on about $50,000 of inherited stock she sold, gave part of to her secret boyfriend and did not tell me about, “that was my money, I would never do anything to hurt you.” That last one is my favorite! sorry for the diversion but the theme seems to be similar. What I did had nothing to do with you so don’t hold me accountable for what I did. I think that’s the theme ????
Yep, and also in many states that is not her money, it belongs to both of you. I live in a state like that now, and years ago I divorced in another state where it was the same.
It makes total sense to me that inheritance is community property (unless it is put in trust or something like that).
A spouse is liable for any debts run up by a spouse, they should share in the good things too.
So to me she gave away your money too. And as for taxes she ran up, are you liable for those? (rhetorical)
Ex FW addmitted on D-day that the cheating had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with him. It was all about his unhappiness and how the OW made him happy. Funny that, because throughout our marriage he never once said he was unhappy. The night before D-day we had sex and he declared his undying love for me. Apparently I didn’t get the memo that he was unhappy. Then throughout the divorce process he had to justify to everyone why he was unhappy and it was because of a laundry list of my “faults” including I didn’t read the newspaper enough (so that he had nothing to talk to me about).
yeah. so you bring up another point. dealing with a FW who has sex with you, tells you they love you and shows no signs that anything is wrong – then poof – they are gone with this long sob story of how unhappy they were and how you did not fulfill them, etc. It’s whiplash and concussion-worthy
One of the things I have appreciated reading here all these years is that this site, unlike most of the internet, is pretty free of critical and argumentative responses to what people share here and basically supportive.
I’m not posting fucking dissertations here or trying out for the debate team. I just share things that have helped me with the intention that it might help someone else.
Take what you like and leave the rest. Please forgive me if you think I don’t get it exactly right.
TTYL
my ex used to say that. didnt stop him developing sti, stealing, and all the rest of the bullshit
Brilliant!