UBT: “We tried to stop so many times, but we couldn’t”
Sometimes people send the Universal Bullshit Translator single sentence snacks, kinda like throwing fish to a sea lion. Gobble, gobble, nom, nom…That all ya got?
Elli flung this tasty nugget to the UBT: “We tried to stop so many times, but we couldn’t.”
Yes, it’s just one sentence, but so layered and complex in its bullshit.
Let’s break this down.
1.) Pity the cheaters for they have a compulsion. So many times they tried to stop! But like a moth is drawn to the flame, or toddlers must pick their noses, they could not stay away…because…
2.) THEIR LOVE IS JUST TOO ALL-POWERFUL. It tilts planets off their axis! It crushes Buicks like wilted tissues! It unclogs drains! THEY WERE NO MATCH for such a force.
3.) You can’t be mad, because hey, they TRIED. They put up a gallant fight to preserve their mild affection for controlling, sexless ol’ you. But they failed. Give credit where credit is due. Once they were faithful for an entire 36 hours. That should count for something, but of course you lack the sophistication to understand and APPRECIATE such effort.
But hey, what’s important here is their happiness. And isn’t that what really matters? I’m sure you’ll be happier too without that second income or grown-up to raise children with. (Children live on air, in glass bowls, and you just sprinkle a few kids flakes in there a couple times a week. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE COMPLAINING ABOUT.)
Tell them I’m happy. Ergo they are happy. And no more kid flakes today. Daddy has some happiness to pay for over at the massage parlor.
The art appears in Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life (Hachette 2016) and is copyrighted by Tracy Schorn.
I got the same load of shit from my cheating ex. It also translates to: “We knew it was wrong, but it was so fun we did it anyway.” #sorrynotsorry
I know exactly mine said he deserved it!
I’d already decided to divorce now-XW, but the night before I told her was a classic!
When I got back to our apartment from night school, she wasn’t home. No note. No text. No phone call explaining where she was. And she didn’t arrive home until 2:00 a.m., drunk. I wasn’t there by then, as I’d gone for a walk to clear my head and mentally prepare for the next day when I’d tell her, “So long.” Of course, that fucked with her head, because she was expecting me to be in bed, sound asleep, when she stumbled in sexting the OM with one hand and chugging water to sober up in the other.
The next day, after I left her booze-stank body in bed and went to work, she e-mailed me to tell me she had met OM in a bar to tell him the affair had to stop…but that they got drunk and made out instead. Clearly, she thought I somehow knew/saw what she’d done, so her plan was to “confess” and claim that she couldn’t help herself.
Just LOOK at her good intentions: she tried to break it off with him…by meeting him in person…in a bar…and not telling her husband about the meeting…and then pounding some beers to make the breakup easier. Look at ALL THAT EFFORT she put into stopping. It’s such a mystery as to why they ended up making out instead of breaking up. There must have been some mystical force of nature at work that overrode ALL THAT EFFORT. Couldn’t be stopped.
What a crock of SHIT!
They never intended to stop. It was just something that they told themselves (and us).
And regardless, intentions are not what matter. Actions matter.
Yes, words out of a cheater’s mouth are absolutely worthless. Once you’re a liar, you’re a liar. Their actions are harder to mask. They both spoke loud and clear there.
Oh, and they also “tried” to stop after you were divorced, after I found out, and when she was doing the pick-me dance so hard she told him to fight for me, because po’ little her got served divorce papers without the requisite drama. I love your response that it wasn’t that you were unwilling to fight, just that she proved herself not worth fighting for.
I got the story that the affair started, but then my STBX knew that it was wrong so she wasn’t in contact with AP for 2 months, during which time she worked really hard on our marriage. Then she knew that it wasn’t working so she went back to the AP. Of course, I knew nothing about any of this while it was going on. I knew she wasn’t very happy, and I was doing everything I could to please her. When I found out later, she felt I should have known. I told her that I didn’t suspect her of anything because I don’t operate that way, I trusted her. That apparently was yet another way in which I just wasn’t doing things right.
That rings a bell Canada. Mine told me I should have known she was lying and cheating.
It’s good to hear from Men too.
Shows that cheating is less a gender specific behavior than it is character.
It’s difficult for me to trust men right now.
Indeed, dandoopy, that’s one of the reasons I liked this place when I found it; hearing from faithful women having the same emotions as I was gave me a glimmer of hope that. it every human was evil.
Also, I too had the distinct pleasure like others here of knowing mone broke up with her fuck toy to be with me. It’s cold comfort, but he knows she dumped him for me too.
If they’ll cheat with you they’ll cheat on you, bruh.
Which means you’re not man enough to reign her in by dancing or force. I’m not man enough either, but I was man enough to help my attorney wrote an amazing “Schedule A” for the second count on my surprise divorce filing.
This experience has upended my understanding of what is manly. I thought my ex was manly for being athletic and carrying a gun and wanting to protect people. (Aside: He didn’t want to protect people, he wanted to exploit his authority to feel secure and powerful.) Turns out that those things don’t make you anything. *Actually* protecting people (including your own family) makes you manly. Holding strong boundaries makes you manly. Choosing the right thing over the easy thing is manly. Showing up when you’re needed, and then doing the thing that’s needed of you is manly. (They’re all womanly, too.)
I now view my ex as a pathetic overgrown teenager. Nothing about him feels manly anymore. But the men in my life who show up? They are manly as hell.
Word.
Very well said, Free Vix. My ex was a tall, strong military Colonel. Came from three generations of them. I thought he was an alpha male with a big heart who put the country ahead of himself. I learned that each generation hid serial cheating and family abandonment behind the uniform. I remember my ex blaming his grandmother’s “anger” at his grandfather’s cheating for the poor state of THEIR marriage. This family was no more evolved than teenagers and surrounded by enablers.
Love this
That helps, FreeVix. It’s pretty easy to feel inadequate and unmanly after learning your wife was a serial cheater over a 20-year marriage, especially with all the slights and exploitation that comes with a person like that. Sometimes hearing the situation reframed can help change your perspective. Thank you.
Amen!
This.
I’d say that’s pretty manly!
And of course, because she couldn’t be alone, she had to branch-swing to the OM when things weren’t working out with you.
Just goes to show how little it was about your relationship and how much it was about her wanting cake.
Yes, mine did that, too. I found his sexual harassment notes about the affair from 8 years prior; haven’t yet twigged that the most recent emotional abuse is due to his being in a current affair (and he takes the current affair partner to China with him on a conference 3 days after D-day). When he returns home, it becomes clearer to him he is not going to finesse his way out of the affair-from-8-years ago, and I suspect he breaks up with China girlfriend. But once I become intent on divorce, Hannibal Lecher convinced her to leave her own husband to be with him.
How’s that working for her? Last I heard, she was about to go on antidepressants after 1.5 years with Hannibal.
Hahahahahaaaaa!!!!
Aaaaaaaaawwwwww, poor Grad-whore.
I wonder how many Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s good little Catholic girl Mrs. Dumb-Ass prays daily with The Evil One
Id wager a Rosary or two. Ask me how I know…
????????????????????
Ex and Schmoopie “broke up” three or four times during the six weeks or so of our attempt at reconciliation. First he broke up with her so he could reconcile with me. Then she made him come see her in person so she could break up with him because she decided he should reconcile with me. Somehow or other they ended up breaking up again a few more times before he decided to give up on me and move out. I sometimes wonder if they still break up off and on or if they are all good now that he and I are divorced, but I guess I really don’t need to know.
Mmmm hmmm. They have to meet up. So they can have closure, doncha know.
Yes, the in-person breakup, from an AP. As soon as this breakup MUST be in-person, you know what it’s really for.
A friend of my now XW, believing her when she said she wanted to stay married, told her that she should quit her job to get away from the OM. My wife found that suggestion to be totally ridiculous, as she felt she had a “right” (her word) to explore her feelings.
It ain’t what they say; it’s what they do.
Yes, I got this too. After he broke it off with her over the phone to attempt reconciliation with me, she demanded that they meet in person for “closure.” Of course, he felt he “owed” her this, even though I asked him not to do it. So the next time he traveled to her location for business, they got together and he lied about it to me. The logic of the home-wrecking whore needing “closure” and the cheating asshole feeling like this was legitimate still boggles my mind. And of course, the affair continued another six months after their closure fuckfest anyway.
Wow! Mine had to go in person officially two times. God I was a sucker——
Yes. Mine told me he had to let her down gently because he’d ruined her life. And I caught him a few times “letting her down gently”. He had no problem tying a cinder block to my ankles and pushing me off the bridge after 20 years of marriage.
Mine couldn’t break up with her again because he had hurt her so much and besides, if he did that she would never trust anyone else again. He had worked so hard at peeling off layers he couldn’t possibly cause to become hardened again.
It really does feel that way doesn’t it.
Ugh.
My version was:
“I knew I couldn’t be faithful, so I left.”
I got “the damage was already done after the first time, so carrying on didnt matter” ????????
Wow. Just. Wow. Cheater justification right there.
“Our marriage was over anyway”……I guess I was the only one who didn’t get that memo.
Yep, mine said that too.
I missed that memo as well! He tried to tell our kids that we were like “friends” and “roommates.” I didn’t say this to my kids, but I did say to my friends and family, “Gosh, does everyone have sex with their friends and roommates?” Revisionist history: helping cheaters to justify their actions in their own minds since the beginning of the human race.
A couple of months before DDay Ex suddenly decided my snoring was too loud so he started sleeping in the guest room. Later after DDay when he admitted he’d been bringing OW to our house while I was at work, he blithely told me that they didn’t fuck in our bed because he showed her to “his room.” So I’m pretty sure he must have told her we were just roommates because he literally had started secretly setting that up in our own house.
Ha!
Asshat attempted to gaslight me in therapy with, “I moved into the 3rd floor guest room after our daughter was born. Flat out lie to the therapist and revisionist history of this ‘marriage’ and my faults. I stated he was flat out lieing to me AND the therapist with a ton of supporting documentation. He response was, “well, I FELT I should move up to the other room because..(insert bullshit HERE).”
(Therapy was early early early mainly for me to deal with the awful DDay. The incident above predates the MOW I busted him with approx by 16yrs! I have no idea which side piece he was fucking, most likely xhighschool GF or a work rando.)
Wow. Lots of typos today.
Holy moly! Mine said the roommates thing too!
He told his lawyer that! From all of the above comments, maybe it’s just as well that he never told me anything. Or, the only plausible explanation is that he really never tried to end it.
I also got “our marriage was over anyway” from my then-cheating now-ex-wife, along with another line that’s straight out of the Cheater’s Handbook, “I love you but I’m not in love with you.”
Later, her AP also informed me that “Your marriage was over anyway,” to which I replied, “How do you know? Were you there?”
The AP was also kind enough to let me know that “You never knew the REAL (insert cheater name here).” I had to nod and acknowledge that, as he grinned at me smugly. “You know what? You’re right about that.”
I told him the only difference between him and me was that he KNEW he was marrying a cheater. Hmmm. No witty riposte on that one.
It’s amazing how the same excuses and justifications are everywhere. I got the same thing, but I have never spoken to the AP directly, I only got the BS second hand. I also got, “he’s a lot like you”, which nearly made my head explode. I responded, “he isn’t because I would never do this to anyone”
Oh man, some people really can make you crazy. Poop boy told me his AP was “a lot like me”. Right, the woman who didn’t even know Lenin existed, let alone read the guy, is sooooo much like me.
Ain’t sure who he was living with all those years, but apparently, he didn’t even know them.
ha! I got that same line…..”she’s a lot like you.” And i responded just as you did. Do they even HEAR the crap they’re saying….
I thought I had the only lying cheating skank in Canada
Unfortunately nasty skanks are just as common in Canada. Maybe because of nafta?
Must be something in the water up here. Or they just can’t find any other way to stay warm.
Another Canadian Chump here. #sorry
Canadian Dad, I am where you are. I thought we were happy too! After 27 years, he literally went from “We have the best marraige of anyone I have ever met” to “I did not realize how unhappy I truly was” in a matter of days. (I should say days after OW told him how sexually attracted she was to him and that she wished she could take him upstairs and have her way with him in the rooms next to our sleeping children.) I was told he fell for her because she is so much like me. I just want to vomit. She is not like me! I do not lie, I do not screw married men (she is still married and her poor husband does not know), I do not manipulate people, I do not destroy families. This was six months ago, and my head and heart are still spinning out of control.
Tell her husband. He deserves to know that he is in a fraudulent marriage,that his life is a big, fat lie !
Wow! This thread contains the most similarities to my DDay as any I’ve come across.
For a long time I felt like I was the only one to go through this.
Prayers and Christmas wishes to each and everyone here.
I got the memo after dday, “I told her we haven’t gotten along for the past two years.
The narrative fit his actions; he was dating for those two years.
There were a lot of try outs before he found THE ONE. Healthy women don’t buy the lies. It takes a needy wannabe soulmate type to fill the slot.
BINGO! Women that latch onto married men are insecure and ow self esteem because if they were with it they don’t need a married man!
Absolutely, DoingMe!!!
Same here. God knows how many times he tried before finding his Schmoopie— a chump herself, two little kids, living with her Mommy and daddy, 10 years younger than him, perfect for him.
I was told “I thought it didn’t matter as we were going to split up anyway”.
S’funny that you never let me know when you made that arbitary decision ?!
Mine simply said “I deserve to be happy.”
Yes, this person who vowed to love and protect me, who has been lying, cheating and deceiving me for 20 years deserves to be happy. Me? The honest, loyal person raising his daughter and taking care of the Home? I deserve to be abused.
What a schmuck.
I know exactly Giddy Eagle mine too I was running the home and chasing after two young kids all day. No excitement for me whatsoever but it was only his happiness that counted!
Mine’s version was, “Happiness is out there. . . . (sigh).”
This was after two months of us being married. Why doesn’t he have the balls not to tie the knot with me if he still thinks happiness is out there?
I got, “we both have a long road to happiness”, I called BS. It seems like she was determined to take an F**ing shortcut to happiness. We had been happy together for almost 30 years, or so I was to believe.
Giddy Eagle,
It is so totally backwards,and unjust, isn’t it?
Funny how cheating correlates with memory problems in cheaters. My cheater also forgot to send me the Memo about “growing apart”. Selective memory lapses: cheater never forgot to eat his cake.
Exactly cheaters are selfish pigs that I believe were never really commited to the marriage or family!
Ugh. The growing apart line is pathetic. I got, “our interests diverged”
Clearly, as I was interested in him and he was interested in the OW
Got that too! She said, “I thought we were probably going to get a divorce” so it was OK to lie, cheat, offer no apology, no remorse and no empathy.
Exactly she said to me I sensed he was lonely the marriage had troubles so I took advantage and destroyed your family!
Oooo, that had to hurt. You have my deepest sympathy, sir.
I got ” I jumped before I was pushed”
I pointed out that as I had no intention of pushing then how could he have thought such a thing?
His reply “I just did” – so making up crap to suit.
waste of oxygen
Yeah, I was told the same thing. I’m convinced they use the same cheater’s handbook…
I got the same line, along with “we weren’t getting along,” which was news to me.
Over time (while pursuing AP) X continued to criticize me more finding fault with just about everything.
My infractions included, parking too close too the house, not loading the dishwasher correctly,
One day after asking our son to turn his stereo down and later to empty the garbage, with our teenage son in the room X claimed I was being unreasonable. X continued his lecture continued with his concern that I had a mental illness.
X became more distant and uninterested in family activities which he blamed on having too much on his mind.
I think we all know now what x had on his mind among other appendages.
I’m also certain there’s a Cheaters handbook.
Mine too Brit constantly starting fights with me over nothing issues then I realized it was a ploy to get away to the rat motel with her! I sat for 4 days all alone with two crying kids wondering where daddy was!????
The Evil One claimed tuat I “neglected” him by playing Candy Crush and Pet rescue too much. Or I spent too much time gossiping with work buddies on the phone…
Yep, your Honor, its true. I played midless computer games to decompress, while he was chasing tail online and going AWOL all night without a single text or phone call
Right!?! I got, “you’re not supportive of my job.” This was after me sacrificing my career for 5 years so he could work his dream job. WTF?!?
My texts have too many typos, I didn’t notice and wipe clean the smudges on the wall by the back door, I didn’t fold socks correctly, and I had the nerve to get a bicycle grease stain on my pants biking home from work one day. His biggest complaint, however, was that I was low maintenance and didn’t spend enough on clothes, hair, nails, etc. Oh yeah, and I am not a screamer in the sack no matter how obviously I show enjoyment in other ways. I guess that was a major blow to his fragile ego. If it doesn’t wake the neighbors it didn’t happen.
Very very amazing!
I got this same thing from my STBX.
I was to blame for many things.
The weirdest one was at our daughters 16th birthday party last March. She asked me why I let her watch old family videos. Her deceased sister was in them quite a bit as she was with our kids alot when they were young. My STBX had requested I find the old family movies so we could watch them with our daughter and her friends. It makes my head spin when I think about how much I tried to change myself over the years. It is embrassing when my story is told and I wonder why I didn’t run away……
I got ridiculous ones too-
The garage was a mess (his stuff)
My shoes were next to or under the bed (the horror!)
My closet was a mess (Um-why are you even in my closet?)
There are too many classics to remember
It just made him so mad he couldn’t have sex with me dontcha know
He had to turn to porn, hookers, and rando Craigslist hook-ups
Then cheater turned the “moving goal post” towards me……….not young enough, skinny enough, pretty enough, etc. You all know the drill.
I look back on that now & want to throw up!
Soooo glad that chapter of my life is over
Exactly how it went with me and mr cheaterskates. (He met the love of his life at a skating rink at 57 years of age. She was 49) He was doing everything in his power to try and get me mad and go off on him for several months before the first D day. Losers and cowards. That’s all they are.
A fuckwit on skates lol
My STBX I think was trying the same thing. I think she wanted me to get all mad and blow things up, but I was always willing to work to fix our marriage. Things finally had to come out because I just wasn’t willing to throw away a 29 year relationship like she was. Even then, I wanted to work things out, go to counselling, whatever. I shamelessly danced the dance, but no go.
We had planned a family trip from Kansas to Colorado and the kids and I were all ready when he came home from work. He tried every which way to start a fight so he could justify not going (I wonder which co worker he planned on fucking that weekend?). I refused to jump at any of his bait. We all stood there silently while he went through some bizarre machinations. He ended up going with us but acted like a nut that whole evening
Judas went to Vegas every year and would pick fights with me JUST before he left. It wasn’t until my son told me about his fuck phone that I realized WHY he would try to pick a fight.
My STBXH complained that I left my pillow and blanket out of place on the couch. He could not stand that it made the entire house look “trashy”. This was after I asked him to please take the trash out once in a while…..He would leave bags of garbage piled up next to the garbage can full of his empty liquor bottles. It would smell. I got tired of doing it, and complained that the house was beginning to look like hoarders live here. Yeah, but the pillow and blanket made the house look “trashy”. He was great at defection and projection! Never take responsibility for anything, just find fault with someone else!
I took the trash out for good this summer…..
Mine complained that I didn’t stop the kids from leaving pillows and blankets on the couch. Never mind that he was home playing SAHD, it was my job to discipline the kids for failing to meet his standards.
I started to leave the bag of trash in front of the door so he would trip on it on his way in… That was the only way that lazy would take it out
Same…I didn’t always make the bed, or always get the mail, etc. He complained about everything I did before I finally confronted him.
Sounds familiar. At the time I had the worst job I’ve ever had. 12 hour days with a 1 hour commute both ways and I was taking night classes to try and get a BS in engineering. And, I failed to do my share of the house work. OM had no such expectations on him. I never complete my BS; settled on an AS in technology.
Same here, but the OM wasn’t expected to do anything.
I left too many pens around the house!! Yes, he said that the reason he moved out was that I was always leaving pens around the house. I picked up all seven pens that I had left around the house and begged him to return. DD #1 six months later. So glad that’s behind me. I’m currently enjoying my X-free life with PENS IN EVERY ROOM.
LOL! Oh I love it when something on this blog is just so absurd I really do laugh out loud! “I cheated because of pens” oh good fucking grief. I too wish I could send you a case of pens. Sweet, sweet pen freedom!
I didn’t bring his dry cleaning home.
This proof of complete lack of care (he has so many suits) coincided with my feeling that I was unpaid maid, nanny, home help and child minder. All that was missing was my uniform.
Mine was “your sense of home decor is horrible”. I am in my new home (divorced) and decorating. I feel liberated but also scared because sadly I internalized his criticism no matter how silly it was. Enjoy your pen filled home!
If I could, I’d send you a case of pens for whichever winter holiday you celebrate. My favorite are Uniball Signo 207. Waterfast and archival quality. Better than your cheater, who runs, smears and has low standards.
That is not a thing – ROFL !!!
Can I just say you made my day…
Hilarious.
I so wish there was an emoji or like button.
????????????????
He also sounds highly disposable like crappy pens. Hang on to the good ones, CN!
BWAHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If only our Xs could be counted on like a Unibal Signo 207!
Shout out to all my fellow pen nerds out there!
Ya know, now that I think about it, a major pet peeve of mine was that CheaterEx never put a pen back after using it. They just… walked away. It was embarrassing when it came time to pay the piano teacher for my son’s lesson and I couldn’t find a pen to write the check! Now my pen cup(s) are always full of all my favorite pens. Another little thing that is just so much better with him gone!
OMGosh… You are hysterical and so spot on!
Love, love the cartoon Chump Lady!!!
So true! After Dday, my cheater always wanted points for “trying” too. They act like it is some Sisyphean task to not stick their penis in a strange vagina, when literally all they have to do is NOTHING. Leave your penis right in your pants, go about your daily work. Literally DO nothing in order to not fool around.
When my brother was a teenager, my dad always used to tell him: “KYPIYP”: Keep Your Pecker In Your Pants. Pretty simple concept really, unless you’re an asshat cheater.
Ha ha. My one didn’t mean to get her pregnant apparently. Maybe the should read a book about how babies are made
Leave your penis in your pants. IKR, sounds so simple to us Chumps. Who knew?
I wasn’t aware that some people’s parts just fly around like that. Mine has been able to stay where I put it for the past 49 years.
I got the “I thought I tried”- yeah, well tell that to your kid who’s counting down the days til she can tell you to “Fuck Off” asshole….
Holy crap! Mine said he tried SO HARD. Like he was some sort of hero.
My ex wanted “effortless”- this working on this marriage was just too taxing for him. He chose the route of “It’s just so effortless when I’m with her”- talk to me next year when the two of them shack up with her two kids… the disordered fuck who willingly gave up his only kid is going to play daddy to hers- bring on the popcorn…
After DD when I asked him why he gave up on our marriage I was told ” It’s easier to start again with Susie Slutpants than fix things with you”.
I wonder if she knew she was the “easy option”?
Years later he has bred 2 thick-piece kids who left school with no qualifications, who stack shelves in Poundland ( UK equivalent of Walmart) and an elderly relative of hers living with them.
I wonder if it’s still the easier option?
It probably still is the easier option. Not the better option but definitely the easier option. They never want to make any effort. The effort to raise their children well. The effort to leave a good proper doormat. Have you ever tried finding a good door mat!?
PS I thank the Lord every day that I never had a child with this f***wit.
Poundland is the dollar store, USA Chumps.
This! I got this too. How is anything in this world effortless?
I got “it wasn’t love as it should be” and “it shouldn’t be so hard.” The effort it takes to maintain a marriage after kids, deaths, jobs, life in general – cheaters can’t deal.
Mind you STBX NEVER, and to this day, admitted to cheating on me. He moved in with diesel sludge ho worker 4 months after leaving.
Exactly. Being with her is so “effortless”. Perhaps it was because you had zero responsibilities at her house and don’t actually have to parent her kids.
Yup, he hasn’t disappointed her and failed to be there when needed with her enough yet so of course it is all effortless. Adulting and raising families is hard and he ain’t interested in the difficult and boring stuff. So entitled.
Bingo. It’s all fun and games when you neglect your responsibilities to be together.
Oh, I forgot the line “I was pulled along more than I actually pursued her.” Of course, because Nothing is Ever His Fault. He is a child.
I got this, too. And I actually considered it for a long while. But I kept having nightmares with the AP in them and 1. She showed no remorse and was clearly over it; and 2. she said “None of this would have happened if he didn’t plan it.”
In my dream!
When I accepted that this was his plan and all she had to do was go along with it, the dreams stopped.
Trst that the SUCK!
Exactly, even though I was ignored and covert-narc abused I managed to go hours and hours (31 years of hours) in a row without cheating on HIM. Because that was MY plan.
It always takes two to tango. If one or the other has decency, self-respect and boundary, none of it would have happened.
I go this one.
And I got told that it was no use talking to me about making our marriage better because “People don’t change”, “We share nothing in common” (like Kids, 15 Years), “The flowers you bought me meant nothing because they just died anyways”, “We were not friends”…….
I’ll just play in my head the “People don’t change”, so that means you are a back stabbing, self centered liar, and I see no reason to be friends with you.
“Hark yee No contact, listen as the silence sings”, Merry f’n Christmas…
OMG! Laughingsquirreal, that’s one of the things
X said to me, “we have nothing in common.” why did’nt that occur to him 20 years ago? Really, it took him 20 years to decide we had nothing in common. like you, we have a child, 20 years sharing a life together, major moves, furloughs, family vacations, birth of our son, first home, pets, our families, our memories all thrown away like a bag of garbage.
Yes, I heard, “We have nothing in common but the kids,” after 36 years together.
Nothing in common but 36 years of history and a family.
I had nothing in common with The Coward, either. Except 20+ years, 3 kids, 2 houses, grad school, vacations, friends, inside jokes, sex. Nothing at all.
This BS line seems to get used a lot. My STBX said it to me too, we shared almost 30 years together, 3 children, a number of hobbies, countless hours together. I guess the parts we didn’t have in common, like messing around, breaking 2 families apart, feeling that promises made a long time ago just don’t count anymore were what she was talking about.
My ex basically said the same. 39 years together and 37 married (he pursued me relentlessly while we were in college). We had a beautiful daughter (Homecoming Queen and everything else a parent could ever want) 6 precious furbabies, 4 different homes and the hundreds of things you go through in 39 years together. He threw it all away for a twice married whoreworker who is 42 and never had kids and is not attractive at all (he is 60). Guess in the end he was right, we really have nothing in common!
“People don’t change”, “We share nothing in common”. I got these too. The thing is, he seems perfectly willing to change or at least pretend to change for Schmoopie. He hated Harry Potter, Ballet and Musicals but she likes them so now all of a sudden he likes those things too. His opinions are morphing to match hers. Daughter says she likes to point out how he really feels about things in front of her when he knows their views conflict. The usual result is “I don’t think that, well ok, maybe before but not anymore”. He must not be truly comfortable in the relationship yet if he still feels like he has to agree with her on everything. The truth is ex and Schmoopie don’t really have anything in common either other than a willingness to fuck other people’s spouses and tear families apart while still trying to convince everybody that they are good people and their relationship is normal and good. Barf!
Ditto! Schmoopie don’t really have anything in common either other than a willingness to fuck other people’s spouses and tear families apart while still trying to convince everybody that they are good people and their relationship is normal and good. Barf!”
What X has in common with whore in addition to narc with no integrity or compassion or empathy: daily drug use (pot, snorting adderral, coke) and smoking and drinking $3K of alcohol per month, “hates” kids (including his own and he told our 4 kids (ages 27–10) that! ????????????????????????????), hates “Home” and “furniture” (?????). WTF???? Losers.
Btw— if anyone is in Paris for the next 10 days and you see two disgusting obnoxious Americans — that’s them (we never went anywhere because he said we couldn’t afford it).
he: 50 yo, fat, balding, ugly as hell, 6’4, blonde with shark-eyes and her: 35 yo super skinny with big boobs, huge chin with dollar signs where her eyes should be. Please feel free to tell them off!
Paris is a 5 hour drive from me. I could go recce the place and report back!
Great description Motherchumper99.
My sympathies to the city of Paris for being obliged to host these two.
P.S. I’m hoping to God that the Parisian narcotics cops are working overtime and pop these two so they can spend X-MAS in jail (they first thing they’ll need to do when they land today is score their drugs).
Please karma bus!!!!! Please please please!!!!!!
The countdown clock to their demise is ticking. This needs popcorn! On their future DDay surely he will blame her for everything, mock her preferences and have disdain for why they always have to go to that fucking movie/ballet/etc.(she is sooo controlling!) and declare he never loved her at all. Too bad you don’t get to have a front row seat to that shit show.
That cartoon is hilarious. Old goat and delusional damsel.
These OW have just GOT to have Daddy issues! LOL
Ya think? My X is significantly older than me already, but when he was 56-62, was having affairs with 22-year olds. Even though he’s in good shape, eww.
For it to be my ex-husband and his whore the woman has to be older, a mutton dressed lamb. He couldn’t even get cheating right.
I said the same thing. She was only one year older than me, same age as him, but still. They are supposed to leave for younger women. He couldn’t even get that right. I guess it doesn’t really matter, however. The older ones suck just as much as the younger ones.
OW, 15 years younger, was still living at home with her psychiatrist dad and his OWife (they cheated and broke the family up when OW was 3 years old— Cheater-dad and OWife got custody!). Sick sick sick
The cartoon made me giggle, this is exactly X and OW taking themselves way to seriously.
Giggling in my office here too!!
Looks like the ex (balding, hairy, walks with a limp old man) and his young 20-something schmoopie who just adores the MD at the end of that old geezer’s name.
To our male chumps, I’m not as much knocking the ex’s looks as saying what the hell do the 2 of them find appealing in each other? Young knockers and fat wallet anyone?
Not gonna lie, I saw the cartoon and burst into hysterical cackling.
LOL….notice he has more hair on his chest than on his head wearing REAL sexy tighty-whities!
SWOOOOOON!
Look at his droopy ass!!!!!! Tracy, your details kill me ????????????????????????
I was going to comment on the cartoon too. I just love the guy’s underpants. Wow. And you know, if you painted him blue he would look like Gladitsover’s dancing sasquatch!
Not to mention how saggy the seat of his pants are!
Every time I think that someone’s Cheater is dysfunctional, I think of the dancing sasquatch. I think that even Kunty Kibbler pales in comparison.
Haven’t read the article yet, but the pic has already driven me to comment. He looks like my ex – turkey neck and with slightly more hair. The whore looks like his whore too. So spot on!
I love this image so much because it is TRULY what Mr. Sparkles and the final OW looked like… when I saw it in the book, it was all I could do to not cut it out and frame it for them.
Sadly, they’re no longer together because the love that could not be denied was apparently lopsided (he kept on cheating with other people – the OW wasn’t SOOOOO special afterall.) Mr. Sparkles one true love is kibbles.
But while they were fawning all over each other (after he moved out), it killed me. THEY went fun places… THEY did things together… THEY LIVED. Meanwhile, I was doing the laundry, grocery shopping, and picking up the pieces of my broken family.
CN – if we can only keep the beginning of the end in context: ALL relationships start off with endorphin highs. But, just as our marriages did, the highs become right-sized and with luck become something much deeper and long – lifelong – lasting. The fuckwit cheaters are sprinters. They don’t have what it takes to run the marathon. Sure, the upside is they get fleeting happiness. But, the downside, which I can only now see from three years out, is they will never truly know or FEEL deep abiding love… not from a partner, not from their kids, not from within their own selves. You couldn’t pay me to switch places.
They live, we pick up pieces. We see the hurt and anger in our children’s eyes. Thanks for the reminder that it gets better.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!
Ha! Same thing went down with my ex as she ran off with the OM, soon grew tired of him, and did it again. She married and divorced several times and today lives a sad, lonely life. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer Sad Sausage (or would you call her a Sad Taco?).
Sad taco. ???? ????????????
Just proves how superficial they are. I’ve been watching The Lowe Files with Rob Lowe and his sons. Not only is he totally gorgeous probably the most attractive thing about him, in my opinion, is his commitment to his wife of 26 years. We can only imagine the amount of beautiful women that have tried to tempt him throughout his career, but he says his wife is his best friend and not only does he love her, he likes her too. Now THAT is a real man, sexy as hell
I don’t know, he creepy gushes about how great his 1989 ménage sex tape (with a 16 and 22 year old) was, and how it spurred him to the path of sobriety. A grown man having a three-some with a 16 year old. Filmed it. Kudos to turning your life around, but ever stop to think about her “amazing” post-tape life, Rob?
I really disagree with you 2nd Gen Chump. I don’t know too much about the tape incident only that from my understanding the two girls consented. The guy was only 25 years old at the time and shortly after met his wife who he’s been faithful to it seems ever since – a total of 26 years. Did you never do anything wild in your youth? He’s since shown a maturity, commitment and loyalty to one woman, those of us posting on here can only dream about. He’s had the looks, money and fame that must have attracted women like moths to a flame yet he appears to have put his marriage first. Most of our cheaters weren’t equipped with a fraction of those attributes or temptations but cheated anyway.
I think he deserves some credit rather than judgement for a decades old incident in his youth that unlike many of us has been memorialised because of his fame.
I couldn’t agree more. Like I said above, my ex loves “effortless”- that won’t last forever. Let’s see where he runs when the sparkle wears off and he actually has to work at whatever they have. Not my problem anymore…can’t wait for the day my kid turns 18 and I can change my phone number.
Yes!
How bout some co parenting gems from the cheater and wifey#4?
1) from wifey poo to my kiddos as she explains why she can’t possibly attend their activities even though she drags them to her kids activities every time I do the hostage handoff: “I can’t possibly go to your play bc your mom sits next to me and wants to be my best friend” (I get there first and she sits in the row behind me.,,she hasn’t attended since she slapped my oldest and was court ordered to stay away from,her for 2 years)
2) mom stole our weekend with you this month- no this is my vacation….like you got in March and June.
3) we do pay for….
Stop lieing out of your lieing lie hole.
Hitting my kid…..
I would be in fucking jail….she would be missing….
So courts aren’t great with people who kill stepmothers who,just gave birth.
I got an RO on behalf of my 2 kids and made her and ex jump through shitloads of therapy and pay for the GAL.
They have all been better behaved since then…but yes I want ed to rip her limb from limb…but you know…be the sane parent.
Having 70% physical custody helps.
You are a model to us all, Love Dovey! I hope your kids are weathering this challenge well.
I have noticed my older child does not particularly like drama in personal relationships. I think this is great, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is a side effect of watching so many years of the It-Is-All-About-Me Show put on by my EX. I hope your daughter internalizes the idea that being hit is absolutely not acceptable.
SHE HIT YOUR KID?!?! How did you not throttle her?
Mindfulness and reading chump lady
I could really use a love that can unclog drains and toilets too! That’s true love!
My Minister called me one night about 7:00 pm. Something was wrong with his car, and he had a funeral to officiate in another town the next day. I stayed up all night rebuilding his transmission. Free. Of. Charge.
I had no idea he had been banging my wife for a year.
My Christmas wish is for the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs to get their asses kicked in their upcoming bowl game.
#TCUsucks
Ugggh! A minister banging the wife of a married man! Fucking deplorable!
I really, really hope you ‘outed’ him.
That is just disgusting.
I would send him a bill at this point really.
Wow! What a shithead.
Please tell me she didn’t volunteer you for the job…
I myself have issues with TCU that I can’t disclose. Boiling water too easy a fate.
This shit is so twisted.
Asshat asked me to guide one of his fuckbuddies around Rome because she is a clueless twat and of course I was happy to help.
What kind of sick creep gets off on this? Oh yeah, cheaters and other disordered sociopaths.
With your knowledge the revenge fantasies must be great, far better than just sugar in the gas tank. I admit when OW#1 was in the picture 9 years ago I dreamt of ways to have her house blow up due to my specific career technical knowledge and sabotage abilities. Never did a thing to her but it did make me feel better. I am sure it would have just martyred her in my X fuckwit’s eyes. Honestly, I read Kathleen’s story here of the OW gettting killed in a car wreck and praise karma but her fuckwit just hopped on the next one. I am sure that is what mine would have done too. There is always someone more special than their family out there for these asshats.
Oh heavens. I hope Schmoopie doesn’t die until after he figures out what a waste of space she really is. Otherwise she will be forever on the pedestal as he pines for what would have been if the perfect woman hadn’t been torn from his life so prematurely. I hope she lives a good long miserable life.
I hate him for you, SuperDuper! That is all kinds of messed up! The gall…..Worst kind of sick, the Jesus-cheaters.
Cheaterpants ex was one of those BARF!
Please remember: God hates cheaters just as much or possibly even more than we do (Rev 21:7)
{{{HUGS}}} to you SuperDuper as you ForgeOn!
#jawdrop
PreyingMantis would ask me to redo the resumes of “friends”, if by “friends” you mean affair partners. But this doesn’t even begin to hold a candle to the chutzpah of your former OMinister.
:O
Now that is truly just cruel and unusual punishment. So sorry!
…JESUS! SDC, I’ll gladly root against the Horned Frogs for you!
Staryeye, stick with me, I’ll help you! 2 weeks ago I unclogged the main sewer line for both bathrooms (sinks, toilets and showers.) Didn’t even break a sweat. (Thank you YouTube!)
How??!! I need to know nomoreskankboy!
PS: I thought I would always be sad when the divorce was final, but no. I’m happy. Glad he’s gone.
I have to replace a sewer pipe. NOT looking forward to the job. Bleah.
I dealt with a domestic sized fatberg. We should rock on with our awesome selves.
All though this was my job even during marriage.
DO NOT flush anything other than toilet paper down the toilet!
Apparently the biggest cause of blockages are BABY WIPES. They are made of polyester, they do not dissolve, please put them in the bin!
The cartoon….the post………that’s some funny stuff.
Bottom line – there are some really ridiculous people out there, and unfortunately we all married one of them.
The sad part is until we go no contact we often believe some of their crazy-making lies! And wonder if we were deficient – not fun enough – too focused on kids – not as sexy as affair partner etc! It takes a while to find their comments funny – as in mine telling me “I️ know it doesn’t make sense but I️ need to see where this other relationship is going”.
Yeah – I️ was plan B after over 30 years vs true love with 26 ur younger ho-worker
How about you have a man who had an 8 month realtionship with some skank and was still messing around with other people. No love just sex men and women. Gotta love tha Craig’s list . Threw away his family for pure sex even though he little dingy can’t get it up . Now that I’m
Divorcing his ass after I made sure the kids could handle the truth . 2 years I waited because I knew that my daughter would never leave me and go to college and the boy would have partied way toooo much from the disclosure of the truth. Not the getting his little dingy sucked by a man I kept that in my back pocket for negotiations. This man cries and cries. He thinks it’s not fair that I made him retire at 48 just so I could get half his pension. He ruined everyone’s life not for love or an OW he ruined everyone’s life for his little dingy that he can’t get up. Oh yeah the porn and I’m pretty sure sex parties. But I’m sooooo mean for taking half. These people are sick I never in my life would have thought this of him. He always said that I believe the best in people and I’m nieve. Not so much ass wipe I made you retire with the understanding that I would stay. How does it feel to be chumped ? Every month when half of your pension isn’t there you can thank your special little dingy. No love just sex. Demented
Takingback, WOW, you rock !!! I’m clapping right now,
If folks just want sex that’s not inherently a sin, but for the love of it all, BE HONEST!
Well done for putting one over on him!
In the immortal words of Yoda:
Do. Or do not. There is no try
Our cheaters don’t seem to realize that.
This quote is forever ruined for me because when my douche’s therapist told me I had to trust the douche, after finding out he’d been cheating on me for 12 of the 14 years we were together and him continuing to gaslight me at every turn, all I could say was I’ll try and he busts out with that Yoda quote, like I was the asshole. Suck it, therapist.
Oh Lord, ex ( Miserable Vomitus Mass) always said that to me and the boys in that creepy Yoda voice. Apparently, we were the only ones that had to “do” to please him. He never “did” for us.
And I got the poor wittle me, “ I tried to be faithful, but I couldn’t take it anymore and had to have my “indiscretions” because you didn’t like sex”. Yep, bj’s from a nurse, a librarian, a happy endings massage worker, a prostitute, an old high school girlfriend, endless amounts of porn, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on. At the end, while he was still living in our old bedroom….I bought tasteful nudes, 1 for each “indiscretion” and hung them on his wall so he’d have to look at them every time he was in there. Funny, when he moved out, he didn’t take even 1 of his art pieces, lol! Guess that would have been hard to explain to the plethora of skanks he planned on having over to the new digs.
Oh, I’m sorry, he is monogomous with the Adult Friend Finder Whore. He actually said that in an effronted tone. But, hey we are now divorced and he hasn’t yet put a ring on her finger. Wonder what’s holding him up? After all, she “gets” him and can deep throat the best he’s ever had.
So, glad to be away from him and his weird, creepy bullshit.
I was addicted and couldn’t stop!! It was an addiction I tell you, oh wait no it was a midlife crisis, oh uh it was really temporary insanity!! I know it was killing you, crushing you everyday for months, but hey I couldn’t feel your pain because I wasn’t the one being cheated on. So we should just forget about it and move on, stop asking uncomfortable questions you are just spinning your wheels because I’m not going to be honest, it is just a bump in the road, honestly I’m so disgusted by my behavior that I will never ever ever do it again, I promise, trust me, I want you, I want our family.
TXDUDE, that DejaVu all over again!
TxDude,
I got all of those as well. It’s painful to have to come to grips with the fact that she doesn’t live by the same set of rules that you and other non-narcissists abide by.
Do not allow yourself to be lulled into living in a state of denial. Discovering her continued aberrant behavior will become more difficult as she learns how to better hide it from you. The cat-and-mouse marriage police game gets old and it’s exhausting. Is this what you signed up to become? An amateur detective? You will never fully trust her. She knows it, too, and deep down she lacks the ability to care about what she’s doing to you.
In fact, by hanging in there to show her what you feel is devotion, she now interprets as “training” you accept her outrageous behavior. The next “slip up” and lame excuse is an inevitability.
GTFO and start your new life ASAP. Don’t waste the precious time you have on this planet tethered to a disordered fuckwit who is only too willing to keep you around as collateral damage to her self-focused existence.
A future without her can seem unknown and intimidating. But why live in a house that’s being destroyed by a slow-moving fire just because finding and moving into a new house is outside your comfort zone and full of strangeness? Logic should tell you that in your present situation you’ll end up standing in a pile of ashes. Waiting it out is a fool’s game.
And allow me to add a little more perspective to all of our situations with the following:
I exist today because my father’s mother made the excruciating decision to escape Europe with her children just before the Nazi war machine invaded her home country. She and her husband reluctantly made the decision to split the family, albeit temporarily, until they could be sure their children would be safe to return home. Her husband and all those who stayed behind to preserve their houses, businesses and possessions were wiped out. Everything was destroyed. There was nothing to go back to. She left the comfort of her home and the only life she knew and landed on the shores of America with very little. But she survived, and she and her children slowly established themselves in a new, foreign home and thrived. And they eventually had families and their families thrived! How grateful I am for my strong, little (literally, she was like 4’10”) grandma who went on to outlive two more husbands and raise nine children. And all I had to do was leave a narcissistic cheater and move to a new apartment.
So wonderfully said!
I just have to say. This man is no rock star in the bed either. So I have no idea what the hell it was all about. Makes me just laugh at him. What an embarrassment to be married to someone like this for 23 years. I knew the moment I found out June 30 2015 it was over it was just a matter of when. Hope all the sex is worth the money jackass.
I got “I felt bad every time I did it.” Then why did you do it?
You know what really feels REALLY bad? Being cheated on.
I was told by Cheaterpants, that every time he met Susie Slutpants they agreed that “it was so awful having to have this wonderful relationship with all this guilt” !?
Obviously that pair of immoral, low-life, slimeballs didn’t feel guilty enough to stop it though…..
Yeah, I got the same. They knew it was wrong, but…
I asked ex what he said to his schmoopies to make them think fucking him was an ok thing to do. He response was “Nothing. Nobody thought it was ok”. They still did it though.
Nothing about how much hypocrisy cheaters can produce surprises me any more. There is no limit to the the moral gymnastics they go through.
Sometimes I wonder which would be worse: hearing a cheater say, like mine, that it was all wrong and yet she did it anyway, or having to listen why it was morally ok. I suppose either way, you’re eating a shit sandwich, so it doesn’t matter.
Wow now that is a whole new level of pathetic. Sorry that happened to you. Your cheater didn’t really feel bad, maybe a little bit guilty but definitely not bad. From the mouth of a cheater, “I don’t feel your pain because I’m not the one being cheated on.”
In the immortal words of Yoda: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
I got, “We never even had a real marriage anyway.”
So I guess that wedding ceremony and those vows in front of all our friends and family, and those 15 years together, and our child, and sleeping together and the intimacy for all those years, and all those family vacations, and all the “I love you’s“, and the plans we made together were NEVER REAL.
Turns out the only thing she thought was real was her secret life as the town bike. Then I found out and shit got REAL! Then an attempt at wreckonciliation, then discovering more of the same secret life, then a REAL divorce.
Now I’m REALly grateful to be rid of her and living a REAL life that’s free of her narcissistic drama.
GDD,
That’s just plain nasty – be glad you’re rid.
I’m trying to R with my cheater, she says her affairs were not real, that our marriage and life together is what’s real? She is the master of mindfuckery. !
TxDude… google the following: gaslighting; blameshifting; pathological lying.
Or, take another tack, look at everything she has put you through (real or imagined). Would you tell your son to stay with someone like that? Is this a person who has the same moral character as you?
Or yet another tack, let’s say you reconcile… and some day off in the future she finally finds the “right” sucker and leaves you… what will be your sunk costs vs. cutting bait now?
YOU KNOW WHO SHE IS… SHE IS SHOWING YOU. Watch her actions. Her words are worthless.
I had one of those sham marriages too. I mean I didn’t know at the time when we were doing all of those REAL things it wasn’t REAL. Wish I had been told we were just play acting until he found something REAL. But like you I am REAL glad to be shed of that asshat at last.
Feel free to tackle:
“ It was just sex. Guys are physical, girls are emotional. For a guy it’s nothing more than getting off.”
True story, this is what my ex said to me after d day number 2.
I seriously think he thought this may make me feel better about the whole thing.
Dick.
“But for me, it’s a deal breaker.”
He told me no 2 AP gave him a jumper one christmas so he decided to cool it then because she was getting serious and he didnt want that ‘ only fun!
I got told latest AP 26year old was “fun” . I was too intense at 50…read below for why!
What is it with these “adults” needing life to be fun fun fun….?
What planet are they from?
Peter Pan…..
My dday was May 2015…following a year of working ” together” for a better marriage after he had given me the ILYBNILWT speech and he wanted a trial separation in May 2014
At that time i told him if he needed to leave and go and live out all his fantasies etc ( we were eachothers firsts)…then to go. I would not stop him…it was his choice to make….but he should go if thats what he needed to do….( unbeknown to me he was having an Emotional (physical???) Affair with a 26 year old co work – 20 years his junior…he was a senior lawyer…..
To cut a very long story short he did NOT leave but stayed…we had lots of stressful moments…he suggested I (!) went to therapy for my FOO issues…..whilst he behind my back carried on with his new girlfriend at wotk….exchanging texts…pub drinks…xmas gifts…..In May 2014 I even booked a few days away as a family; b4 xmas ( 2lovely daughters) for family time….and straight after he went back to work he was ordering gold jewellry dog tags so he could make her a personalised necklace…which he did in our garage using my daughters craft letters….and then met up with her for a drink after work ” team drink” lie……..In all my 25years with him he had NEVER put in any such effort for me for any present….
I only got to find out about all of this continued deception in May 2015 when he got so drunk after my daughters holy communion he had left his permanently locked phone unlocked….Gut instinct over the years and that year inparticular led me to read it and there was only one email re searching for the gold jewellry tags that finally gave the game away – 20 long long Years of me knowing instinctively “something was going on” & finally i got the PROOF i had been searching for for years…searching receipts , phone records , searching everything for YEARS and living in a state of “anxiety and confusion” in a way for years as a direct result… but nothing …… etc….
So the next day when over lunch with our girls nonchantly asked him for his phone and got the pic up of the tags he had ordered …asking ” do you like this jewellry” that he knew his lifelong game was up……Once daughters out of the way i let him have it verbally and threw my wedding rings at him and called him a fkg liar liar liar….
We tried to wreckoncile…and during that time i said i needed honesty b4 i could move on as i told him i believed he’d been unfaithful for years…and yep….A year after we married…one night stand with co worker……a year long e/p affair with another co worker ( whilst we going through ivf) he even invited her to our daughters christening where she bought expensive gifts and i tecalled saying to my sister in the day that i thought “something was going on with them) …….online sex sites…….meeting up with 1(????!!) Woman off the sites but ” we just had a drink!)…and the final e/p affair with the 26year old….And there was probably lots more as i now know they NEVER tell you it all…..
So years of sensing all was Not right….being denied…gaslit….told lies to me ..being told i needed therapy…being told i was too intense…( one daughter had serious health needing 2 major ops) and years of me ” being the adult and responsible and organised person in the relationship.)
I supported him when he retrained and changed profession -( he was off work for 5years ) whilst i was earning a lot of money in a senior role as had really put my head down to get my degree and do the best for “us”. Then we got married and decided to “party “in London……whillst i gave up my career to be at home with our children which we had via ivf…..
So to all the newbies out there….please please do not give these guys another chance…..he STOLE 20years from me and made those years so full if anxiety not love…. i can never get back that time and i should have been a mum properly enjoying her time with her daughters… unencumbered by stress anxiety and gaslighting…he has now destroyed my love of life and now most days are a struggle to be a “happy” mum for my girls. He destroyed who i was and i am fighting my way back to ” normal” and to ME again..the person i was b4 i was consumed by his moods needs and wants over the years…never mine.. Its so tough some days to think that someone who lived with you was actually “living another life ” alongside you with other women – it was all a sham. I was just his “security blanket” and his “wife appliance” Disordered fuck. All of the time this second life was destroying me as a person and sabotaging our marriage from within…..Narcissist trough eating cake and kibbles pig…
Read Tracys book – Trust trust trust that theses disordered fkrs suck.
So now – I hate xmas . I hate presents. I hate books. I hate jewellry. I hate all those things he contaminated with his behaviour….
I hate the fact that I loved him .
I hate the fact that i am an intelligent hardworking kind hearted generous and loving woman and great mother …and i hate the fact that I put all my energy love and effort into our relationship and our family and all the time and i was being betrayed distespected and DUPED.
I hate the fact i got duped.
I hate the fact that i was too stupid and loving to really dig dig dig deeper..
He contaminated our marriage.
He contaminted our family life.
He destroyed my essence.
And can anyone please please please explain why when i told him to go if thats what he wanted…ie to separate in May 2014….why the fuck didnt he leave?????
I just cannot get my head around that one – when i asked him oncd he just stared blankly back.
Fuck me – i just dont get it!
Oh yes…forgot to add…
During our year of wreconcilation & his time chasing the 26year old he was also still “busy” elsewhere so she cant teally meant that much to him anyway….. i found out afterwards ..november away on business..did search ” best pick up bars in…december ” how to tell the kids divorcing……” february – uploaded his photo onto tinder….whilst also texting me one weekend when i went away to my sister ” love you & miss you””
WTF????
Thank god -for a drunken night in May and the proof being found otherwise i would probably be still going around in that washing machine in spin cycle for ever…..
So much devious activity – what fucked up person does that?
Chumpedbigtime I’m sorry you’ve been through this. Your pain is palpable. My story has some similarities (suspicious for all of marriage with no proof, locked phone, threatened to leave but wouldn’t actually) but I gave the ILYBINILWY speech. He had just crushed any hope of true, intimate, Grown Up love out of me over 30 odd years of narcissistic behavior. And of course this was followed by a nasty exit affair that in turn crushed my kids.
The point is, It gets better. I’m still struggling with his effects on the kids, but I feel bullet-proof about myself. Once you see that his actions are about who HE is, and not a value judgement on your worth, it gets easier. Keep reminding yourself every time he does something that it shines the light on him and his “lack”, not you. You are loving, you are kind. You are mighty!
Parasites need a host. So sorry for you but stop blaming yourself. His behavior is a reflection of him and you continue to be awesome!
Your story is heartbreaking. I’m so sorry he is such a terrible liar and user.
But to your question. You don’t get it because you are evaluating his behavior based on your standard of “normal.” You think: if he’s having an affair, he should chose one woman and be done with it. He’s thinking: CAKE.
That means he didn’t want a divorce. He didn’t want to give up marriage, which makes him appear to be a normal person. For a narcissist, marriage and family means a “secondary supply” of narcissist ego chow, keeping up the appearance of having a normal life and having security. Then there’s primary supply, which is attention “attention, in both its public forms (fame, notoriety, infamy, celebrity) and its private, interpersonal, forms (adoration, adulation, applause, fear, repulsion). It is important to understand that attention of any kind – positive or negative – constitutes Primary Narcissistic Supply. Infamy is as sought after as fame, being notorious is as good as being renowned.”
ttps://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/narcissists-narcissistic-supply-and-sources-of-supply/
Once you understand narcissism and how it works, you understand:
1. Why marriages and spouses seem interchangeable to them (because they are). A spouse is a source of supply, not a person with feelings and agency.
2. Why, once they leave, they try to keep you hooked. You’ve switches from being secondary to primary supply, so now they want your attention.
3. Why they don’t leave when you discover their cheating–Because they like the supply arrangement. They want to preserve the marriage, keep the assets, the house, the kids. They don’t want to split what they have and pay child support or alimony.
4. Why they leave and don’t look back. You’ve seen behind the mask and they can’t tolerate it.
The best thing you can do is study the literature on narcissism. It doesn’t matter if your X is a diagnosed narcissist. You don’t need a diagnosis. You have lots of evidence of narcissistic behavior. You can come to understand that you were and are dealing with someone who is disordered. That will help you stop projecting your normal, healthy human responses on someone who is neither normal or healthy.
Cluster B personalities do enormous damage to the people they victimize. Speaking from experience, doing the reading and research will be a huge help in your recovery. But you would almost certainly benefit from therapy or counseling with someone who is an expert in helping people recover from traumatic and abusive relationships. You were abused. You can recover.
Is there such a thing as a Narc light? Every time I read a description of a covert narcissist I think, well that sort of describes ex, but he isn’t quite that intense. He follows the narc patterns of idealize, devalue, discard, but he does it slowly. He didn’t actually initiate the divorce but he went along with it without a fuss when I initiated it. He left and moved on with Schmoopie, but I can’t say he isn’t looking back. I do feel as if part of the reason he left and even felt “unloved” in his marriage was because I had seen his imperfections and he couldn’t live with someone who knew he wasn’t perfect. He still seems to care about being a dad but just can’t connect emotionally even when he seems to be trying. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. It’s as if there is this force field that keeps him from truly connecting to other people. He thinks he has a connection to Schmoopie, but he is still pretending to be someone he’s not around her (morphing his interests and opinions to match hers). He is vaguely aware that there might be something wrong with him, but he is afraid to dig to deeply into it so he keeps changing up his external circumstances thinking that will make it all better. It hasn’t.
Chump in Recovery,
Sounds a lot like my ex-boyfriend. They would rather change the external (their partner) than try to fix the relationship no matter how much we love and accommodate them.
It is so hard to understand this stuff at first! I’m a psychologist with decades of life lessons yet I spackled my marriage together when in hindsight the issues were not complex at all, despite my ex’s willingness to let me spin out. After DDay I found a male therapist through his website articles on abusive men. It took 3 hours round trip to see him and he was not a big talker but one day his few words hit home. I was a wreck doing everything I could to feel sexy, be attractive, pick-me dancing for my ex. I’d planned a date night and surprised him with a new Brazilian wax to which he (being a newly diagnosed ‘sex-addict’) surprisingly showed mild to zero interest. So I was hurt, confused, frustrated trying to understand all the nuances of why to which my therapist simply said: ‘Because it’s just a body part to him.” This distilled all my education, research and efforts into words that I knew deep down rang true but I had not been able to compute. That comment at that time from him redirected my trajectory. I’d donated 13 years of my life, exposing my kids to my ex’s nasty personality, allowed him to steal our assets etc. but this was my tipping point that knocked me off the fence because staying meant sacrificing my sexuality, sensuality, sense of sharing my body and although I’m almost 60 I refused to give him that once I really understood.
This is so helpful LAJ. I can’t stop myself from trying to untangle that skein. Jus this morning I was googling high maintenance and needy spouse. He was so damn clingy and wanted me with him ALL the time, unless he was doing something superfun he wanted to do. And he was always texting people, non-stop, and not schmoopie initially. I wondered if something was wrong with me as I had a few really close friends and we didn’t stay in constant communication. He never wanted to talk about me or my day, had to beg him to do so.
Twenty years together, 2 teenagers, 2 known schmoopies, and 2 suspicious secretaries along the way. He needed me so much it was just shocking to find him pursuing these schmoopies (all underling, damsel in distress types).
He’s never quite fit the bill for narcissist in every category, but what’s it matter? He sucks. He’s a cheater. He will never change. He’s a bully in many ways and the kids’ and I nicknamed him ‘The Hammer’ because he was unyielding and really a dick a lot. To everyone else he always has a smile on his face and Dr. Personality.
No more walking on egg shells for me. My home is peaceful and quiet. The kids and I are living a normal life now without a dictator forcing his will upon us or sulking and pouty if we tried to do something we wanted to do.
At Dday #2 for me it was a double edged sword of emotions. I was devastated for my kids and family life knowing it would never be the same and also giddy and relieved knowing I had a legitimate out of the marriage. I also thought of young schmoopie ‘she’s a lucky, lucky girl’ SNORT. She’s still being love bombed so she doesn’t quite know the misery that is him yet!
I always read your posts LAJ. Thank you for staying on and helping all chumps navigate these choppy waters!