Where Do I Put His Stuff?
Dear Chump Lady,
I need some advice on what to do with cheater’s stuff.
My partner of 16 years left me and our 9-year-old for the Other Woman (aka new love of life/soulmate) 5 weeks ago after second D-Day and moved straight from our family home into the new love nest.
He has known Schmoopie — apparently I do not need to know her actual name — for roughly 6 months and having an affair for few months, the exact timeline is foggy to him, but he couldn’t help his feelings and knows how much he loves her and that it is “more than just an affair.” Whatever that is suppose to mean!
The first D-Day came after I became suspicious by his gaslighting. (He had me ready to visit docs and declare myself with a mental breakdown) and I found a text on his phone. After his rage calmed down he managed to convince me she was just a friend, was the biggest mistake of his life, blah blah blah.
Then I spent the next month doing the pick me dance until finally the second D-Day came and his switch flipped. He was now a complete stranger to me, cold, hostile and aggressive, blamed me for everything and basically tore me and our relationship to shreds while I begged, pleaded and sobbed for forgiveness and a chance to make things right.
Finally came the “I don’t love you, I love her,” rewritten history, and he left with only the clothes on his back.
So my question is — how long can I reasonably be expected to keep all his shit? He has refused to come and collect it and since I am not entitled to know where he is living, I cannot drop it at their door.
My house is like a shrine to him and it’s just not good for me or our child, who keeps suggesting he might come back since he has refused to tell her the reason he has left. Could he be leaving it here to keep his options open? Or is it just the narcissist way to leave with nothing and my pathetic hopium is he will come to his senses? I am now going gray rock since full no contact is impossible with a child. I’m really struggling, please give me some advice on what my next move should be.
Thanks,
Newly Chumped
***
Dear Newly Chumped,
Your next move is to a lawyer to get temporary support orders. You may have a common law marriage (partner?) but you have a child together, and he doesn’t get to waltz out of his daughter’s life without consequences. Consequences feels like the wrong word — because supporting your child is not a dreaded punishment. But unfortunately, he’s probably going to perceive it that way. Either by hiring a lawyer, who can get in front of a judge ASAP, or by going to your local child support enforcement bureau, who can open a case for you — you need to FORMALIZE his abandonment.
Start moving forward into the new reality of life without him. The way he’s living now is cake-eating. You maintain the Shrine, (clean up the mess, raise the kid on air and leprechaun wishes…) and he keeps All Options Open. It’s Good To Be King!
Okay, sure, he might’ve promised to do right by his kid… and maybe he slipped you some money for the last 5 weeks, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t stake my child’s future on the promises of fuckwits.
You know who can get his forwarding address? The law. You’ve asked nicely, now unleash the lawyers.
Because Newly, he’s terrorizing you. It’s time to fight back, end the cake-eating, and protect your child.
What? That’s over the top, Tracy. People can leave relationships! Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants! Just because he loves the Other Woman doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his child!
Abandonment, and maintaining the uncertainty — no name, no forwarding address — not only insulates him from consequences (nowhere to leave the summons) — it deliberately and cruelly leaves you and your child off-balance. Insecure and him powerful. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Vulnerable to needing him for something.
Shut. That. Shit. Down.
Starting today you don’t need him for anything. You go to the courts and you demand that to which you are ENTITLED — financial support for your child. And any ways in which you are tied to him by real estate, or property — you begin severing those ties.
He wants his new love? Then he adults. He pays. He forwards his mail. He cleans up his shit. He won’t do it? You MAKE him do it, or you do it for him. In ways he probably won’t enjoy.
Dear FW, I’ve moved all your personal belongings to a storage locker, and paid the first month in your name. (Insert storage contact info.)
Dear FW, You have left your things here unattended and made your intentions clear, you aren’t returning. I am not free storage. I have moved your personal belongings to the garage and you have until Thursday to remove them. After which, they are mine to dispose of.
Dear FW, Please notice the garage sale announcement in Craigslist for this Sat. morning.
Dear FW, I hear the Container Store is having a sale…
These are boundaries. Enforce them.
You give him warning, which is reasonable accommodation (i.e., “Until Thursday”), and then you ACT. You don’t dance for consensus, because he didn’t ask if leaving all his shit with you was okay, did he?
My house is like a shrine to him and it’s just not good for me or our child, who keeps suggesting he might come back since he has refused to tell her the reason he has left.
Don’t leave it to him. You tell her. Dad left for his new girlfriend. Tell her it has NOTHING to do with her. She’s lovable, this isn’t her fault (kids often feel that it is). Don’t try to explain what you don’t understand yourself — just tell her what you DO know. I love you. I will never let you down. We’ll be okay. Model strength and resiliency. I know that’s really hard when you’re not feeling strong yourself, but it’s the kindest thing you can do for her now, is fight for her welfare and be strong.
Could he be leaving it here to keep his options open?
His motivations don’t matter. YOU matter. Your daughter matters.
You are not an “option.”
Start acting like it.
(((Hugs)))
***
This is an updated post.
There is incredible patterning with these loser clowns. It’s insidious. At this point in my life (five years out and done for four) I find myself wishing for a Time Machine and trusting almost no one. Wish I’d never met him nor trying to have children with him. He’s repeating himself over and over down to the pets and vacations. I hope this woman and her child nailed him good (legally).
Wow, he’s a cruel entitled asshole of a manchild. I hope you know that. You don’t sound angry, but you should be angry. Find power in that. Find power in your freedom and build an ever stronger relationship with your daughter one on one. You’re better off without him and CL is right, you need to move towards your new life and start enforcing boundaries. He will feel the consequences and he won’t like them. Once you cut the emotional cord and he realises you’re not there waiting for him anymore, he’ll probably come back all sad or very pissed. Either way, block that shit out. Stay strong!
Agreed I love that what an asshole, man child FUCKWIT, I’m out now 7 years and still it’s difficult!
A fuckwit. It does your life no good (Think of the old milk commercials).
Agreed. He’s living in some fantasy land with his one true love. Never the child and mother of the child that he is legally and morally bound to. These FWs are delusional and evil. Get the attorney rolling and full speed ahead! I am sending you blessings and healing for you and your daughter.
This is the guidebook to handling this situation perfectly.
Print it out
Number the steps (lawyer must be #1)
Post it on the fridge
Highlight steps in colors
Then FOLLOW IT!!
It is perfect and the only path forward.
PS: I helped a friend do this. Rented a van, moved all his crap, paid for a month in storage unit and then she mailed him the key in a tiny Tiffany box. Doing it together helped her laugh thru the pain. Tired and dirty we ate pizza in the truck and kept laughing!
Being able to laugh is like a tourniquet when you just got your arm chewed off in a wood chipper. Thank God for appropriately funny friends. I have one friend who’s always been like a stand-up comic when she’s pissed off. She can also be very serious and has a sophisticated understanding of life and politics but when I think back on our friendship since college, what I remember most is how– dead sober and with no mind-altering substances involved– we’d laugh so hard we couldn’t talk or she’d end up having to run to the bathroom before she peed herself. We used to extemporize bad Dr. Seuss-style poetry for every occasion or do song parodies and there was one time she was cracking up so much in the car that she had to pull over until the corpsing fit passed. When we were both dealing with gaslighting FW husbands at the same time, she told the story of how she finally caught him red handed paying for cam girls on the web– by sneaking up on him like the “twinkle toes” routine from Looney Tunes cartoons (remember those? https://giphy.com/gifs/sneaky-looney-tunes-daffy-duck-xT39DkkGBwez9AXHX2). She has such a comic way of explaining things complete with sound effects and over-the-top dramatic narration that I think I laughed myself back to life.
Your mate sounds like a top bird! Laughter is a great medicine! I’ve surprised myself at being able to laugh sometimes, either from things my son’s told me or from talking to my best mate in England. Before I kicked him, I’d been loosing my ability to laugh t things I’d normally find funny! That tells a lot, doesn’t it?
I’m having to deal with a similar situation to OP. He has my garage full of stuff he’s either bought to sell on (I took to calling it his Steptoe stuff- Brits of my generation will get that, hahaha>), or builder’s equipment. I have been asking him to clear it out for years. I can’t stand him even being on the property now and am waiting to hear from my son’s mate as to whether or not his parents, who have a big property, will have his stuff and he can deal with them in future. Then I want to tidy the house up, which has become shabby due his “vampirisation” of me ( it was as if he was sucking the light and liveliness out of me!), and his spending his free time sniffing cocaine and sniffing after strange, partying with what my mate in England calls “piss-tramps”, and neglecting HIS jobs around the place! Feck him now, I hated having him here the fortnight before I kicked him out after I woke up and the blinders came off my eyes. He brings a dark, sort of jittery, jagged energy with him. I miss the man he used to be but that man has disappeared and I can’t stand what he’s become! Can’t abide it!
Ha ha ha ha…
I knew you were from England with your ‘top bird’ comment.
😁
Yeah Mate, and that’s where I’m planning to go back to once I’ve sold up here. I love Ireland, it’s the land of my ancestors but I have never really felt settled here, so it’s off back to Blighty for me!
Whereabouts are you from yourself? Just general like? I’m from the Midlands!
Hi Shadow. I’m late to this thread so you might not see this but just wanted to let you know that I’m in Ireland. What county are you in?
What humour got you through would be a good Friday challenge.
Laughing myself back to life is now my only life goal. All the rest can wait! 🙂
I love this mission statement!
It’s a worthy goal. 😀
My first d day was getting a text forwarded to me by a friend that my ex had clearly sent her in error. All it said was “because you don’t like being my mistress”
When I called my mom in tears to tell her about his affair, she said “well if it’s any consolation, it doesn’t sound like it’s going well”. I laughed so hard. I still do whenever I think about it.
Humor got me through it. I remember when I emailed my cheater a Some-e-card the day he moved out that that said, “I’m sorry you mistook your cheating for polyamory.” I laughed and laughed but he “didn’t get it. “
Ex wouldn’t have either. I had to explain movie Body Heat to him…., the brevity of a situation-he meant gravity ….🙄
People like your mom with perfectly dry stand-up delivery are life-savers. D-Day provided a bit of comic relief and evidence the affair wasn’t “going well” (why else would the AP be sloppy drunk and rage-crying in the office restroom about only getting “side chick Valentine’s day”?). But I wish the news had been delivered by Wanda Sykes or Eddie Izzard.
Sheesh. What else do side pieces expect, except side piece holidays and side piece treatment?
Rebecca, I love your story! So glad you were there for her.
Dear Newly Chump, what a horrible nightmare! I can’t begin to imagine. From all his shitty qualities, my ex-husband never abandonned his children (by me. Who knows whether it is so bad that our kids have half brothers? #TrickleTruth). Chump Lady’s advice is both snarky and excellent : before taking care of your partner’s belongings, take care of (1) you and (2)your child. This is an urgent situation. The relationship is crashing down. Put your oxygen mask first (aka lawyer and/or counsel), then your child’s (aka no further gaslighting her, and lots of réassurance of your love). Next comes breathing (ensure food, lodging and cash flow). Then you can give a thought to his belongings. He abandonned his stuff. You can too (in the garage, attick, corner of the street…). The current situation and uncertainty is attrocious. Volatile, free-falling, dizzying. Put on your oxygen masks, call for efficient help and start staying the course. Whatever comes next will be better than the last monthes of gaslighting. Both for you and your child. This I promise, from experience. {{{Hug}}}
Good point. Age nine is old enough to understand an age-appropriate explanation about how dad left for an AP. From seeing the various disasters that ensued when friends hid the basic facts about FWs from kids, I decided to be direct with mine after being reassured by my attorney that doing this couldn’t be held against me as “parental alienation” which FW had tried to insinuate. Word to the wise: do not accept legal interpretations from FWs. It’s all self serving and usually bs. It’s a good thing I filled the kids on the facts too since doing so prevented FW from gaslighting the kids with false narratives or playing sad sausage victim (aka, “parentizing” the kids, making them responsible for his feelings) which, sure as rain, he was already gearing up to do.
When there are known pathological liars around, failure to tell the truth leaves things wide open for lies. If a tornado rips apart their childhood home, it’s not possible to fully buffer kids from a sense of loss but, by explaining the basic physics of how tornadoes work, you can prevent others from, say, conning the kids that the home was destroyed as “God’s punishment” or because mom merrily allowed a termite infestation.
My ex was a lawyer and he was always confidently declaring things he was entitled to in our postnup-turned-marital agreement that were wrong. It was 100% bullshit.
“….. and I found a text on his phone. After his rage calmed down…”
HIS rage?!??! HIS?!!
You and your daughter deserve better than this!
That’s a great catch. Note how Newly Chumped just skips past that like his rage at getting caught is normal. This is one reason why no contact is so important; we start to see all those weird, dangerous, terrible things we normalized while living with a f*ckwit.
Excellent advice in here. This dude is clearly cake eating. And, boy oh boy, did it feel good when FW got his shit out last week! I feel like I can breathe again.
The preoccupation with material things might be a hope to regain some sort of control. It is an illusion and can wait until real boundaries are established with legal assistance.
If there is not a formal or common law marriage and if the child is not a shared biological child, do not make promises about FW’s continued involvement. Set an example of resiliency, not vengeance. His possessions can be boxed/moved without the child’s direct involvement. The trauma of abandonment may need to be addressed with therapy, as well.
Dday I was 5 mo pregnant with twins. I started boxing up his stuff and taking down family photos and other stuff immediately. I had a friend come over and help me. I needed that stuff out of my face. After I gave birth without him, every time my older kids were with him (hours a week) I would pack a box or two of his stuff. Then after a mediation we scheduled a day for him to pick it up. He brought a bunch of HS kids he coaches and I had 3 of my guy friends moving his stuff and furniture from my basement to my driveway. He was pissed he couldn’t come in and look at his stuff or grab his air fryer (not his). I told him to review the items and we’ll negotiate from there. Once divorce was final he has a ‘list f things’ he still wanted. He never followed through on it (shocker). This helped me recreate my house as mine and my kids. The house I bought and unfortunately put his name on because I thought we were in it for life and I was helping his credit score. This shit sucks. If you’re going to stay there, redecorate. Make it yours and your kids. That helped me move forward. Good luck.
Brought his HS pupils? Sick.
Par for the course. He had no friends he could ask. When I need things done (mail picked up, house checked on when away helping my mother) I ask friends, for whom I return such favors. My ex? He leans on our (adult) son.
A year after FW moved out he sent me an email saying he would be coming by to get his stuff that coming weekend. I was very much NC by then. In that same email he listed all the “reasons” he left the marriage for the OWhore. I replied with the truth for each & every “reason” & also cc’d his parents & siblings who had all pretty much discarded me weeks after dday. A day or two later FW sends another email saying the weekend was short notice & he would send his niece instead. Short notice? He initiated the pick up. Anyhoo, his heroin using niece & her boyfriend showed up. I refused to let them in the house & put the shit on the porch. See ex didn’t have any friends. The friends we shared were my friends from work, the gym, neighbors and friends of friends. At that point only the drug user was available & she let on at one point that FW had paid her to come.
This is so interesting. I’m with you, Adelante. I lean on friends.
One thing my ex did was have the AP’s son move out some of his stuff from our bedroom, the very bedroom where he and the AP had sex. I just think that’s weird. Clearly , when he entered our home and br, the 18 yo saw that FW was married. His mom had only been divorced a few months. 😬
I asked the FW, “What did you say to the son when he was in our bedroom?”
FW’s response: “I told him I fell in love with his mom.”🤢.
That’s what I get for asking. This was early days, before I got the memo about going NC.
Pregnant with twins and and packing his belongings is Mighty!
My attorney filed an order stating it was my residence. This way there was no wiggle room to return. I boxed and sealed his things and left them in the yard.
I’m wondering when he sees the child given your circumstances.
A very complicated parenting schedule for 4 kids. I had a PRE done which was the basis for my argument for the kids to be with me 70/30.
Nice work on leaving the stuff in the yard. There’s still a pile in my garage. Maybe I’ll just put it out…
“cold, hostile and aggressive, blamed me for everything and basically tore me and our relationship to shreds”
I know this is OT, but it astounds me that most of these FWs do this. They can’t just leave, no they have to shred the Chump and make sure the Chump knows that their whole relationship was a festering lie.
I can’t wrap my head around the reason for that.
My fw wouldn’t tell me who the whore was, or where he was living. I found out in just a couple days because we were both well known and once it was known it spread like wild fire.
My thought is that this behavior is an extreme (and perhaps compact) version of the devaluation & discard phase. Consider two types of separation or divorce. One arises organically between the partners. They change over time–values, goals, needs, etc. They discover that what made them compatible at 22 or 23 no longer binds them. Or they experience trauma. The kids grow up and leave. In one case I know, their beloved daughter was kidnapped and murdered. The marriage did not survive the trauma. And so on. It’s sad but it’s not betrayal. They get counseling or talk together and conclude it’s best to separate. No need to tear each other down because they’ve behaved with as much integrity as possible, even if one of the partners would prefer to stay together. They don’t hate each other or want to bankrupt each other. They have empathy and decency. They aren’t hollow, disordered people.
Now a fckwit can’t do this. As we all know, they’ve hidden from their partner what goes on inside their twisted minds and shrunken hearts. Whatever outside stressors they experience are simply “excuses” for entitled behavior–drinking, gambling, overspending, affairs. In order to exit a relationship, they have to manufacture a “reason.” They got into a relationship by overvaluing and lovebombing a victim (faking love). In the fulness of fckwit time, they are ready to exit, having love bombed a new victim to reset their happy meter. But there is no REASON to leave that relationship. Nothing real has changed, only the internal needs of a disordered person. So they devalue the partner in order to have an excuse to leave. When the actual discard is the result of a D-Day, the devaluation has to have even more spite and intensity because fckwit has been caught doing something wrong. So the shredding is a huge DARVO move, denying that the imploding marriage is the fckwit’s fault and thus justifying all the bad behavior.
Just my theory. It’s a hyper version of the old narcissist’s relationship style plus DARVO.
^This! So true and happened to me.
Me too!
Yeah, why do they need to tear you up and tear you down? At the end, I couldn’t stop confronting FW with all his lying BS and he was enraged! How dare I look at his social media? How dare I look at his phone? Who did I think I was? He never wanted to get married in the first place. He never even liked me. He never wanted to move here, buy this house, buy a minivan, yada yada. He never wanted this life! Meanwhile, back on planet earth: married in Catholic Church, married for 28 years. House, mortgage, jobs.Three kids. Three cats. My mom lives with us.
Dude, you’re fucking 53! When were you going to say something???? Such a damsel in distress? IRL: Abusive a-hole living in a fantasy Facebook account as a great single dad. Ugh!!!
“He never wanted to get married in the first place. He never even liked me. He never wanted to move here, buy this house, buy a minivan, yada yada. He never wanted this life! Meanwhile, back on planet earth: married in Catholic Church, married for 28 years. House, mortgage, jobs.Three kids.” Put 26 instead of 28 and you have my life word for word. Around Dday, I asked him to take to an activity and he answered “I didnt want any of this”. He was the person who wanted a Catholic ceremony.
Are you going to go for an anullment? Me and my STBX fool were married in the Catholic Church as well, and now I’m even more devout and he’s all but lost his faith, but wasn’t ever truly “all in” anyway, so I’ve told him that after the divorce, I’m going for an annullment. I haven’t told him why because he’s A Liar and you don’t give liars too much information (plus all he has to do is agree to it and that’s that. It’s also free of charge and only takes one court hearing by one bishop because Pope Francis has reformed the procedure, so it’s a very simple process now) as I believe he never TRULY intended to be faithful and never truly intended permanence. I believe it was all contingent on him being “happy” so that means that the marriage was never valid in God’s eyes from the start. I want to freed of any ties to him completely, so maybe have a look into it yourself and free YOURSELF completely?
TBH, I do not believe that anyone would cheat if the circumstances were conducive. I believe it’s either in you or it ain’t! If a person is submitted to Truth, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of, they just won’t cheat nor betray because it’s just not in them- they just have too much integrity, a virtue clearly absent from the characters of adulterers/cheats. People can disagree with that but I stand by it.
Sadly, I think your FW’s lines are actually true for my ex-FW. I don’t think he really wanted to get married to me. I think we both, to some extent, decided “the time was right,” and there was no one else on the horizon so it was the next logical step for us to turn our relationship, such as it was, into a marriage, especially as he was in his early thirties, and I was close to 30 and wanted children. The difference between ex-FW and me is that I did love my ex-FW, and I knew that I would be forever satisfied with my choice and not continue to look for someone “better” for our entire marriage. I think he knew all along that he would keep looking. Maybe he tried for a while to be happy in the marriage, but for the most part I don’t think he ever truly was, and I was his Plan B/wife appliance the entire time. I just didn’t know it.
No, CBN. He picked you for your great qualities and he wore them like a skin to walk among the decent people of the world and pretend he was one of them. He adored you for it. And it worked for him for a long time, so he was happy. But he could only maintain the illusion for so long, eventually he was exhausted trying to measure up pretending to be someone as worthy as you. So he found someone new to dupe and he shit all over your marriage trying to make you believe that it all meant nothing and you meant nothing. And his next victim won’t be half as amazing as you, because he’s older now and he can’t carry on the facade as well as he used to, so he picked someone who is less worthy or for whatever reason, has lower standards than you did.
It’s like when I got fired from the auto parts store and they told me I just wasn’t the auto parts type person. And when I cried to my mom about it, she said, “oh honey, that’s a compliment!”
“ He picked you for your great qualities and he wore them like a skin to walk among the decent people of the world and pretend he was one of them”
Yes yes yes.
He rode into our social group on my coattails. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and people would assume he was caring and kind and conscientious. Like me. “BTL wouldn’t choose a bad guy” they thought. “If this new guy (FW) is with BTL he must be O.K.”
Fuck him.
I did all the relating. He was clueless except he at least had the brains to keep his mouth shut.
I was his social seeing eye dog for years. He had no heart, no clue so he had to “wear my skin” so to speak.
Gorilla poo…thank you for your comment. I believe all these years out from dday, this describes ex to a t. The truth of your comment brought tears to my eyes because I know our years together were wonderful & he did adore me all while he was wearing the “skin.” I’m heart broken that I was married to what boils down to a faker. I know his wife (not the dday OWhore) at 24 yrs younger than FW can never compare to my wonderful qualities. At least when the “skin” comes off in that marriage she’ll still be young.
I’ve heard they do that to justify the affair but honestly, I think they’re just sick evil fucks who enjoy abusing others and causing pain. The older I get, the less benefit of the doubt I give people. A friend was just telling me how her mom keeps buying dirty (like shit stained and ripped) baby clothes for her grandson at garage sales, and then demanding reimbursement for the shitty, unusable clothes from her daughter. It’s not a mistake. She’s being a passive aggressive bitch. Some people just like being evil. Abusers enjoy abusing.
I totally agree. My only internal debate is what percentage of people are like this. I am willing to believe it’s 30%.
they’re just sick evil fucks who enjoy abusing others and causing pain
Yup. In a nutshell
I wrote a comment about it further down. I’m convinced the scorched earth behavior is for the same reason armies burn towns, infrastructures and corn fields as they pass through during an invasion– so the enemy can’t benefit from the resources. The “resources” in this case are the chumps themselves and the “enemy” is the abuser’s imagined future replacement. It only makes sense when you study batterer psychology– the shame-inducing and therefore concealed infantile dependency on partners, the sense of vulnerability and rage this causes, the tendency to objectify partners as need-filling appliances, the tendency to subject partners to their own worst fears (being abandoned and replaced) as a preemptive way of protecting themselves against their paranoid assumption the partner will inevitably do this to them.
It’s like a dog with two bones. If they were truly done with the first bone, they wouldn’t growl and snap if anyone tried to approach it. But in this case they kind of growl at the bone to, you know, make it think it has no meat left on it that anyone would want in the hopes it will bury itself.
My ex moved straight out of our house and straight into her’s more or less, in another state. He left all his crap here. I did exactly what Tracy suggested—got a nice rental unit, moved all his stuff into it (had wonderful friends help), paid the first month’s rent and sent him the key.
He was FURIOUS. How dare I inconvenience him that way? Why couldn’t I just leave it at the house until he could come get it himself? Why would I make him pay for storage when I could have used my garage? Did I not understand how hard it would be for to move his things to another state?! He’d have to rent a U-Haul for crying out loud!
When he did arrive to move it out of storage about a month later, he was still fuming…and when the kids (teens/young adults) asked to see him while he was in town, he refused.
He didn’t bother with the charm channel. Just kept switching between sad sausage and rage, mostly getting stuck on rage.
(Then over the next year I slowly but surely replaced or threw out every single thing in the house that reminded me of him from the wedding china to the Xmas tree ornaments to the couch. Made the whole house mine and all new again!)
I’m so glad to hear that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you!!
I bet he was positively befuddled that you were no longer being “nice.” I wish I could be there every moment a FW realizes “nice” and “dumb” aren’t the same thing.
NotAnymore, I love your comment!!! “Nice” and “dumb” are not the same thing!!! Wish I’d learned that sooner! Thank you!
I think of that distinction between “nice” and “dumb” as “accommodating” (for the sake of a shared investment in the marriage) and “subservient.” And I cherish the memory of the time when I made it clear that I was no longer either one.
I hope Newly Chumped can come back and update us.
Her story is almost exactly mine — except in June 2015, I did it alone and didn’t find CL until after my divorce. I wish I had CL and CN then!
FW and I were together 16 years — married for 14. Had a 9 year old child (a son, in my case). I only had 1 DDay though — the minute I found out, FW said he loved AP and didn’t love me… and he moved straight in with AP. He grabbed a suitcase, packed it quickly and left while I was in complete shock and trauma.
Within 2 weeks I filed— because I needed that temporary support (pendente lite). FW didn’t want to pay a dime. He didn’t care about me, his son or the house. He bragged that there was nothing I could do. But you CAN absolutely send the law after a FW. Do it.
Don’t know where a FW is living? FW pretended to be living in hotels. Claimed he wasn’t living with his coworker. So I served him in his office. Give the lawyer and the courts everything they need — FWs Social Security number will find him.
But… When it comes to the property, be very careful here. I know CL said to contact FW and say if he doesn’t pick it up by Thursday, that you’ll dispose of it. It’s better NOT to do that… let your attorney send the letter. With temporary support you will usually get use of the house for you and your child (and can THEN change the locks and arrange for him to get his stuff). You need support in place first so that you have the house. Only then can you safely rid of his crap.
FW wanted me to be his free storage unit. Make me live with his shit. Finally had to have my attorney send a letter through his attorney to force him to pick up his crap. It ended up being 2 rounds… shit he needed to pick up round 1 was early on. I had friends present (not me) to make sure he grabbed his stuff and left without incident. Even on the driveway, I didn’t trust him.
Round 2 was when I had to move from the house — and by then we were fully divorced and I wasn’t moving his crap with me. So I alerted him that it would all be on the driveway for him to pick up. He wanted to argue it, but I let him know it was raining that night so if he didn’t pick it up, all of his signed sports crap would be destroyed. He picked it up 😂
Just be sure to get an attorney and follow their advice on what to do with a FWs garbage.
And absolutely tell your child why FW left. Let them know they aren’t at fault and that you will be there and they will be ok. Please don’t let a child just wonder what happened. It’s terrifying enough when a parent leaves. Help them get through it and be their rock (even when you’re falling apart inside). FWs suck
Agreed, MichelleShocked. Consult a lawyer before you do anything potentially harmful to his property.
I am not a lawyer and each state/province/ country’s laws are different.
Even if it’s legal to destroy his stuff, it could possibly mess with your case.
Oh and I meant to add, fw took his stuff out of the house over the next couple days while I was at work. It was painful, but I think to my advantage.
He didn’t take anything that was not exclusively his. He had evidently already seen a lawyer and as sad sack as that lawyer was, even he knew that fw striping our house would not fly with the courts.
Interesting…maybe it’s a difference in the state of residency, but my lawyer has said I can take anything in the house that is marital property and that police / a judge isn’t going to care that I took a 14 year old sofa and 22 year old dresser.
Could be, I am only surmising what his lawyer said. I do think in that time and in our situation, stripping our house of furniture would have not gone well for him in court. He had basically abandoned me, and as he was the major earner, and I had stayed home for 18 years to raise our son, well it just wouldn’t fly.
And since he was the aggressor, heck maybe even he knew how it would come off to others and the court. He was a police officer (Captain) fucking his direct report; I am sure he was under real pressure of his own making to avoid a massive blow up; that just might hit the news papers.
I do know he was dancing like a ballerina to try and keep his position, and his very job. In the end, he kept his job but was demoted, and thrown back out on the street. Lost his cushy office and poor FW only got to enjoy it for about a year before an ethics complaint was filed against him.
Oh well, best laid plans… and all.
Once the temp agreement was in place, I was given full ownership of all the house contents, except for his personal items (which were already gone) and any gifts. The only gifts left were the ones I bought him which were huge saws and tools; they were all in the garage, which is where I left them when I moved out. I had no use for any of that stuff.
Ok – yes, I could definitely see where him taking off with the contents of the house to go set up shop with shmoopsie would be very frowned upon. Glad his actions had consequences!
In my case, FW got his own place in 2021 that he furnished. Those furnishings are now in storage so if I take the 14yo couch, he just has to go pull his brand new shiny one out of storage. If he gave it away or sold it, he didn’t tell me.
He also likes to act like all that stuff in his storage unit is not marital property because it was bought when he had his own place. I’ve tried to explain to him that since we decided to reconcile, it all became “marital property” again and if I really wanted to be a b***h I could go after that stuff too. It’s like talking to a brick wall and I’ve stopped trying and am grey rock / no contact as much as possible.
Let his lawyer try to get him to understand. It’s not your job anymore.
Leaving there stuff is a way they try to control you and retain access to the home.
Get the locks changed ASAP. Have your attorney arrange when he can come and what he can do. Be sure you are there with a supervisor of your choosing observing him at all times, and have your out of the home.
My attorneys told me that legally I was responsible for the safety of all his possessions, including the furniture he ordered for his new apartment and had delivered to MY home, apparently so porch pirates couldn’t steal it since the shippers refused to carry it up his stairs. He neither asked nor notified me. I found out when I opened my front door and the huge box with his new table, which was propped against my door, literally fell on my head. Fortunately it was me, not tween. Per atty, I had to take it all inside my tiny foyer and keep it there until I could get his friends to pick it up.
Immediately after he left, I sorted household goods and packed up a full set of dishes, glasses, sliverware, household linens, giving him those he’d picked out himself when purchased (eliminating the possibility he’d take my favorites).
I asked friends, neighbors and even community volunteers to help box up his clothes, books, sports gear, collectibles and other belongings except those with high value. I made sure that someone else took photos they sent to me immediately, AND wrote and signed an inventory. (17 blue/gray plain dress shirts, 27 sage green/khacki plaid dress shirts, etc.) I had a neighbor photograph the contents of his bathroom and then box them up in case he claimed I took his meds. I got his work friends to come at specified times to pick up the items in loads, and I had my friends/volunteers carry them out of the house.
Through his attorney, he sent a request for furniture and other property he wanted to split. It was reasonable so I agreed. I had no idea he would later state that was an initial request, and demand much much more. The court allowed him to bring help to remove the agreed items, and he and his friends attempted to steal my non-marital property. I anticipated this and the armed guard I hired to supervise the removal was able to catch and stop most of the thefts.
He’d accumulated a lot of stuff from 35+ years of hoarding, and he sometimes cancelled pickups of truckloads I’d scheduled with his friends. He’d demand to come back to the house, saying he had to pick out certain items himself, in an attempt to get access to my valuables and the receipts/evidence of marital heft that he’d hidden in his shoe rack and elsewhere. I refused. The court allowed him to come twice to “inventory” our home in order to list property he wanted to take, and during those visits, he was quite invasive, opening my drawers and going through my clothes closet. Although I had a supervisor, he was also allowed to bring one of his own and when they split up, he made attempts to steal MY premarital personal valuables.
He’d spent approx $200K on his music “studio” and instruments, and I held those back for a professional inventory as a marital asset. When we reached a settlement on the studio and division of the remaining property, he tried to force me to hire movers to dismantle and pack the studio, then claimed he and friends were coming for two days to do it and wanted me out of the house for that time. Instead, one of my friends found a team of church elders–who turned out to be 20-somethings with lots of music recording experience–who dismantled and packed it all up, with photo inventories of every one of 70-some boxes. When my ex showed up with his buddies, demanding to be let in and for me to get out, I showed him the numbered boxes that were already out of the house, and also introduced the policeman I prearranged to be there on civil standby to supervise. Ex demanded to be let in to pack up the studio. I had photos of the now completely empty studio and showed them to the officer, and sent them to my attorney. Ex was even angrier, but since everything in the agreement was out of the house, he had no right to even step on the property, and was left pacing the street, fuming and swearing.
He did much more, including repositioning security cameras and cutting system cables.
Newly Chumped, his refusal to tell you where he’s living means he has a place to hide anything he takes. Don’t let him steal anything more from you. Let your attorney review your state laws and determine if you can move his stuff into storage or sell it. I didn’t have those options.
Wow, that was a perfect manual for protecting assets against vengeful, thieving, psychopathic FWs, thank you.
My God woman, you’ve been through it. That was some amazing mightiness you displayed. I think the Pentagon needs to hire you as a general.
Chump Lady, you made my month! I’m honored. Lots of credit to my friends and community volunteers who waded through the stuff and inventoried it. I wasn’t kidding about quantities–literally hundreds of LL Bean and Brooks Bros shirts, dozens of them in nearly identical colors and prints. A few friends came multiple times to sort and carry. Some also came to help direct the volunteer crews. The crews included a divorced Starbucks manager who brought her employees twice. A college sorority consisting of tiny Asian women under 5′ tall moved FURNITURE out. And of course the amazingly youthful church elders, who dismantled and moved the entire music studio in one night.
My then-tween deserves a lot of credit, too. He pitched in for the two-plus years this took. He spent the first summer helping me go through literally hundreds of boxes in a two car garage crammed to the rafters so I could finally put my car inside for safety. He deserves a lot of credit, too. About 30 of the boxes, BTW, were nearly empty except for the same items: a rag (usually a towel or ripped up men’s underwear), and an empty small plastic food container, usually Philadelphia cream cheese but some cocoa and chocolate milk cannisters. Is this some bizarre fetish? It was weird to keep finding the same strange things.
Goodfriend, the contents of those boxes is one of the strangest things I’ve ever read.
FW left here more than a year ago. I have sent many of his things. But a lot is still here. I just lost my mom. I’m getting her funeral arrangements done as I type this. My mom lived here with us. She became my true partner and companion. He was just a lump watching hours and hours of TV. Once I wrap up my moms affairs I’m meeting with my attorney to get divorce started. Ugh!!!!
So sorry you lost your mom, your “true partner and companion.” Big hugs, DrDr.
I’m glad your mom was there for you. May her spirit & strength stay with you & guide you through your divorce 💕
I’m so sorry you lost your mom. ((DrDr)). And good for you for starting on the divorce.
I lived a version of this but what surprises me now is that my hopium smoking prevented me from saying to myself:
“Uni, he has shown you what he is capable of. This is who he is, not the sweet loving husband you thought he was or want him to be. This is your reality. This is what you need to base your immediate decisions on”. I will defend my foolishness partly on the fact that he set his cake party up skillfully with a new job 3000 miles away (near OW) and a thousand reasons/excuses for why this was his ONLY option.
“He was now a complete stranger to me, cold, hostile and aggressive, blamed me for everything and basically tore me and our relationship to shreds while I begged, pleaded and sobbed for forgiveness and a chance to make things right.”
This right here. We had a night of this that traumatized me in a way that was so severe, 18 years later, Im sitting here typing about it. This is who mine was and what this FW is
Same same same same same.
Men who not only walk away from their spouse/partner, but also their children in this manner are a special kind of coward. I have lived it. It will only get worse, believe me!! Protect yourself now. Get what you can. It may not look like it now, but your life is going to be better and his ( not that you should care, but you have a child) will not. He is a weak coward of a man that cant fulfill himself and looks for that fulfillment in others. He will never be truly happy.
My attorney said the same when I asked why he started calling my ex “the boy.” He apologized for being “old fashioned,” but said that any man that abandoned wife and children the way my ex did no longer deserved to be called “a man.”
I sorta get that he wanted to reinvent himself, but my ex wasn’t forthcoming and decent about it. It was all game-and-blame. Ugh!
Leaving all their stuff is also a way for them to mark their territory. It’s like they pissed all over the place and left, leaving it stinking of them, to remind us that we and the place are all theirs but they don’t want us.
Ha, so true.
About the only real rebellion I pulled was moving his big ass Lazy Boy out to the curb and put “free” on it. It was gone in about a half hour.
I could have had to replace that if he had pushed it, but he kept his mouth shut. I assume he thought that after all the shit he dumped on me, and the fact that he was kissing ass at warp speed to keep his job, maybe he should lay low.
It stunk like cigarettes. I did feel bad about that after the initial thrill died down. This was before CL, but the if it feels good don’t do it, wasn’t in my head then.
But all in all, I handled it pretty well for the hell I was going through. Numbness helped a lot.
Friday challenge idea: based on reading all the other people’s accounts, what are 2 or 3 things that were true for you as well – even though the situation could be very different.
Ex. Like this letter writer, I wasn’t allowed to know schmoopie’s name.
His stuff stayed in ‘our’ home
for his connivence for a long time.
It would be interesting to see quick groupings of similarities.
Thankfully, my FW never set foot in the house again. When my youngest would go to visit her, I would pack a van load of bins with her personal stuff. After about 3 transfers of bins in the gas station parking lot where we met, the final few bins were everything from our wedding. The carefully wrapped wedding dress she wore was stuffed into a bin and packed down to get the cover to close.
At this point, it was about 3 weeks after D-Day and she was already living with the FW. The night after I unloaded the wedding bins on her, I get a text at about 11:30 P.M. that said “All of the wedding things and my dress! Can we talk about this?!?”
I had been unknowingly doing gray rock at this point and just replied “No. If you don’t want any of it, throw it out.”
I had to laugh at the thought of her and the AP, opening bin after bin and when they got to the wedding dress bin, it came expanding out like a compressed pillow when they opened the lid.
FW left 2 things, her wedding dress and the wedding cake cutter.
Dear Mr. Chump,
One month after D-Day, I sold my and FW’s wedding rings and dropped off my wedding dress and all the wedding china, silver and anything I thought he would like to have with Good Will. Then I opened a bank account in my name only and put the money from the sale of the rings in there. I took our wedding album and all pictures of him to the dump. I had 20 photo albums of our 37 years together. We had been married 35 years at D-Day. Good riddance FW!
Love the separate bank account idea, maybe I’ll ask FW for his wedding band 18k and have it melted down after waving white sage or something to prevent bad spirits…
I packed up the wedding albums, then I went through some older photo albums, which was hard. I removed any pictures that had FW in them and left any with the kids in them. I never got any communication on any photos, the kid’s baby books, etc. I made a bin for each of them with all that stuff in there. I think they’ll appreciate that when they’re older.
Not surprisingly, FW’s mom did this same exact thing to her dad about 20 years ago. FW and her mom both cheated in the same small town (300 miles away) with the same pattern of behavior and playbook. FW didn’t talk to her mom for over 3 years because of it. Then she did the same thing to her own kids.
It’s funny, I still talk to a lot of FW’s family, but they won’t talk to her. The ones that don’t talk to me anymore, and this will shock you, are all cheaters.
I’ve noticed that, in some dysfunctional families, the kid who most holds on to chronic anger and resentment towards a flawed or bad parent is often the one most likely to eventually turn into the bad parent. They usually remain deeply enmeshed with the lousy parent as adults despite past abuse, never seem to evolve to a philosophical take on it and the anger remains strangely fever pitched. The process of transforming from victim to perpetrator seems to start with the adult child using the bad parent’s conduct as an excuse for their own misdeeds and failures until they eventually embody the bad parent and project the resentment they once reserved for abusers on to their own victims. It’s like they can’t live without having someone to blame for their lives. I imagine that’s how the generational cycle of abuse continues.
Another predictor is the adult child who totally whitewashes the behavior of a flawed or abusive parent. Either extreme doesn’t seem to bode well. The only exception to this I’ve seen is a friend who only learned as an adult that her supposedly upstanding, pillar of the community parents were financial crooks when they tried to rob the estate of the grandmother who raised this friend. The trauma was recent and the parents are still playing elaborate games to keep their embezzling and larceny under wraps so– because the parents are high-end frauds– I can understand why my friend was so blindsided and is still upset. But, for most people raised by abusers and creeps, their parents were known quantities all along and it’s rare to be totally surprised by it.
Hell of a Chump, that’s me in the first paragraph, which is one of the reasons I’ve never married or had children. But I’ve never cheated, nor would I. I’m less angry with my father since he died, but the anger hasn’t gone away.
I was no contact with him the last 20 years of his life mostly because I was completely at a loss as to how to deal with a crazy alcoholic who had an alternate universe version of my parents’ divorce.
What you said is totally correct. FW’s mom is very manipulative, lies, and is one of those people that loves to give gifts and cash, but it’s with a selfish motive and to get the praise. FW’s dad is a kind and caring person that really got screwed over in their whole situation.
Looking back with the hindsight glasses, it’s telling FW’s family, including 4 aunt’s, 1 uncle, 3 sister’s, and 1 brother, there is a whopping one marriage that has lasted. That one was on very shaky ground for awhile too. Come to think of it, none of the cousins are married either. I don’t think I stood a chance!
There’s a paper on the disordered thinking pattern of a range of serial offenders from college exam cheats to serial killers describing a kind of self-talk called “neutralization” (as in “neutralizing guilt”) whereby offenders minimize their own guilt and responsibility, blame victims, justify their behavior and generally reduce the stigma of their crimes until they feel zero pangs of conscience. Authors speculate that neutralization is so effective at snuffing empathy that it brings up the question of whether a theory of in-born empathy impairment is even necessary to explain how some repeatedly do heinous things without feeling bad. Basically they can employ this learned Jedi mind trick, like flipping a switch to turn empathy on and off, and rationalize just about anything.
The obvious question is, where do they learn it? I have to assume it’s a mental tactic that gets modeled and passed on from generation to generation until it’s polished to a mirror sheen in some toxic clans. People like that don’t come out of a vacuum.
You are pointing something out here that should be addressed: The sickest, most self-absorbed FWs hold in their minds that if they quickly up and abandon their spouse and children, WE will keep the shrine intact. They have the mistaken view that we, (their spouse and children) are just static things in a picture which has not been disturbed — and in their mind remains intact and unaffected. They don’t have to focus on the million emotional triggers of wedding items and family photos and anniversary gifts that still surrounds us. They get their new life and the fond distant memory f the rest of it.
Being confronted by these tangible items is a jolt they don’t like.
I’m glad you did that to her.
Yes, the shrine intact. What a great anaology!
I left up all the pictures and everything that belonged to him at first, like he’d just up and come back. I wouldn’t even let our oldest park in the garage where his dad did, and actually bought more Pepsi for the pantry, thinking it would be there for him. Of course that was all so triggering. Eventually, I let the oldest park in the garage and took the Pepsi to a church picnic.
When we decided to sell the house, I asked him to provide what he wanted, and then packed up and moved everything else to a rental. I’ve always felt that part of the reason he was so horrible when he came to get his stuff was that the pictures and other signs of family life were gone. As if it wasn’t gone at that point?
FW initially moved out with few belongings. I realized at some point that everywhere I looked I saw constant reminders of what my life had been. For my well-being, I started putting his things in a separate space so I wasn’t bombarded with visual reminders. He claimed I was removing him from our kids’ lives.🙄 He had no concept of the h3ll it was living in the formerly shared space.
Two years later, I offered him the nightstands from our room before I gave them away on Buy/Nothing. He said to make sure the drawer from his nightstand was empty and listed a few things that had been there. Oh, yeah…. I had emptied it long ago. No shrine by my bed. He was shocked.
But for the length of the marriage (DDay was my 20th wedding anniversary) I could have written this. Down to the nine year old daughter and him leaving with just the clothes on his back.
At the very least, this blog is an INCREDIBLE gift from Tracy in that we get to read that there is NOTHING original or unique or special about cheaters and side pieces. They all do and say the same exact things. This is the cheater playbook, not love. Love is a verb and deception is not part of the definition. This behavior is not the behavior of healthy, emotionally mature, properly wired people but a scene from Lifestyles of the Sick and Dysfunctional. Healthy people do not have affairs. End of story. If you think wonderful people are the majority of humanity, five minutes on Twitter will have you believing otherwise.
I did NOT do what Tracy suggested. I had not discovered this lifeboat yet. I was drowning and filled with terror and in excruciating pain and just could not deal with much. I was chumpily leaving the door open. By some miracle I discovered this blog about four months after he left and then it was only a few months more of reading here daily that you all, led by Tracy of Arc, helped me put the garlic and crosses on the door and nail it shut forever.
But here is something someone might learn from my experience. Oddly, it took me a few years to realize he did NOT leave with his truck and the clothes on his back. It only appeared that way at the time.
Out of sight was a LOT of money he had been hiding away for the entire twenty years we had been married, which is also a classic cheater move. He is too selfish and cheap and petty to leave with his Dodge Ram hookup truck and what he was wearing. I found out he had squirreled away almost 300K, that I know of. It’s safe to assume there is more.
So, LOOK FOR THE HIDDEN MONEY.
Traitor Ex, Embezzler Extraordinaire, actually called me about five years after he left to ask for a three dollar bike tool from the workbench. If that does not prove he is bonkers I don’t know what does.
The idea that my ex may have hidden money haunts me two years later. I was convinced by him and my lawyer that we didn’t need to go through discovery, as we had already agreed in principle on the major issues. Sometimes I wonder if he really didn’t want to do discovery because he had secret accounts. I’ll never know, and in some ways getting free of him in 9 months was worth it, but I do wonder. Then I also remember that he was getting himself deeper in debt every month when we met and wonder if he really had the skills to pull that off… oh well.
KADawn, the only way to have a stab at the truth is to hire a forensic accountant, which by itself costs a small fortune. I talked about it with my attorney. I could spend 30K to find 10K.
It’s not off the table for me as I continue to own a business which he owns half of. I have to have enough financial probable cause to justify the expense and I don’t have it yet.
But I am looking.
Velvet Hammer, that’s the same decision my mom had to make when my parents got divorced. She thought he might have hidden assets in ‘his’ business, which was community property. But after discussing it with her lawyer, she decided it didn’t make sense financially to hire a forensic accountant.
One thing she thought was going on was that he had receivables that he’d asked various customers not to pay until after the divorce. IDK; all I can say is that to my knowledge, there was no evidence of hidden assets in his lifestyle, and his estate ended up being worth a few thousand dollars.
He was living in a trailer on a small piece of land in rural Texas when he died. He’d gotten a reverse mortgage on it, so it went to the lender. He had 2 vehicles, 2 boats, 2 scooters, and 2 campers, but apparently all he owned of those items was one of the vehicles, which was an old beater.
My attorney quoted $4,000+ to do a valuation of the investments and pensions because my ex took out lump sums frequently after he left and rebalanced monthly. There was an 18-month gap in my separation date (earlier) and his separation date (later). The question was who had given up on the marriage first. When did I truly give up? I wavered a lot, but certain things did happen in the first month that nailed it. My attorney was 95% sure he could make the earlier separation date stick in court. By going with the earlier date, no forensic accountant was needed. I had the statements because I copied them when my ex left and gave him the originals, so no discovery on that part of it.
But his attorney raged about lack of proof, lining up witnesses, and more. They agreed though. We settled out of court. Closeout valuations were a breeze. I saved some money and probably got a little more in the end. Good enough.
“there is NOTHING original or unique or special about cheaters and side pieces. ”
Yep, and another trait they share is they all think they are unique; but of course they aren’t.
Well this sounds familiar. Another fuckwit mistaking Limerance for love. And moves right in with twu-wuv, soul-mate, sex-bunny, a wallet, whatever has them hot & bothered at the moment or useable.
My ex chucked it all for Limerance too. Took him awhile to realize his mistake. Too little, too late, bucko!
I wasn’t waiting around for him to realize that, all for him to do it down the road again. See I learned something about these types! They’re suckers for Limerance (for sparkles, for shiny & new). I was his Limerance once too, I realized. I was just the sucker who took it further with him with marriage, house & kids. It took me a hot minute too to get on with legal representation…but it struck me, if there was ever a moment to adult & protect myself, my kids & what I had, it was NOW.
My ex left stuff behind after he was supposed to take everything. Random shit too, like soap in the bathroom. I didn’t realize how evil he was at that point so I gave him time to come get the rest while I was on a beach trip with a woman I thought was a friend but who was probably just another of his sick, demented whores.
He masturbated on my shower doors, leaving it to dry for days in return. That’s what I got for being nice. I had to scrape it off with a knife. (Oh, but since he screws men too, I’m sure he just had to do that because he’s so confused about his sexuality and how society treats him. huge fucking eyeroll)
Do not do him any favors. Follow the law, don’t get yourself into trouble but do not do him any favors. If you can afford one month storage, that’s probably a safe way to do it. But never, ever let him back into your home.
I could have written this in 2015 to except for 25 year marriage and 4 kids. Dday, trickle truth/lies, Dday #2-10 a month later followed by rage/shark eyes/cruelty followed by abandonment with lies that he’d come back if I did xyz….he left 25 years of his stuff with me…. Everything. I found you, Tracey, imposed consequences. I sent the message about his stuff, which I had packed up in the garage. He came and got one or two things (and terrorized me further because I still hadn’t gotten the hang of no-contact). 18 months later after divorce was finalized— took a week long trial and a court order where judge kicked X’s ass financially— X’s evil lawyer sent mine a nasty gram demanding his stuff. Stuff he’d never asked for in the divorce. It was a play to continue terrorizing me. I had long since thrown most everything out. I collected things I knew he and AP would hate (our family pics with X posing as the loving husband, arms around me, romantic cards written to me from the same time he was cheating, and a few pieces of his family heirlooms that I had, photographed all and set them outside for him to pickup by a certain time. Oh, I “may” have doused the few items of his clothing that I found (old t-shirts I was using as garage rags) with very strong perfume…. 😂
Yep, the belated request for the heirlooms…
FWs abandon and devalue their own family but want the family heirlooms. File that under Psychotic Irony.
I wish I had read, believed and followed this advice when my FW dipped out without warning in January 2020. He played mind games that went back and forth between the possibility of saving our marriage and family and his absolute determination to end it all and marry someone new. Seriously, he was a bit deranged, but I was in the middle of the storm struggling to keep our young sons from falling to pieces.
In retrospect, everything Chump Lady says above is absolute truth and wisdom.
Our broken little hearts insist that if we ‘play nice’ the FW might realize what he’s losing. What we should do is go immediately to an attorney and set things in motion to protect ourselves and our children. My FW let me ‘share’ the joint bank account for four months to pay bills, then cleaned it out and stopped everything. Mid-pandemic lockdown! I relied on help from my widowed mom and didn’t receive a dime of support until almost a year later, and within three months he was playing games again. Truly: Shut. That. Shit.Down.
My FW swooped out of the house with all his clothes and the stuff he felt he wanted because I, naturally, would play the good guy and not hold a community bonfire to burn his video games and family heirlooms, (his family cookbook? Not really an heirloom). Three years later in court, he was asking for the right to come through the house and see what things he wanted and was entitled to… I kid you not. I said, “Sure, if I get to rummage through your place and see what things you took that I might want.” He didn’t.
So this is the biggest truth to grasp: A FW is NOT entitled to make all or ANY of the decisions regarding their real life obligations following their decision to take a powder. They ARE blighted to legally continue support for their children even if they don’t want to. Real life still exists even if they choose to live in Schmoopie-land, and you’re not IN ANY WAY a bad guy for insisting that they be held to those obligations.
Trust me when I say that every month you waffle on claiming what’s rightfully yours, is just a month that you won’t get — because if you wait eight months to officially file for support, you aren’t going to get those months back retroactively.
Lean into logic here and ignore the wistful desire to find out he’s a unicorn.
Wow!! Fuckwits are such……Fuckwits aren’t they.
I struggled to move all his shit out to begin with but the anger then set in and I chucked it all in one of the garages. Before the anger came I would allow FW to ‘pop’ in to collect this and that…. That hopium pipe cracked when the anger came.
I then held everything hostage and wouldn’t allow him access to the house or garages until the divorce settlement was agreed. We owned many classic cars and bikes which were worth a mint (FW was being a total wanker with regards to what was rightfully mine). It worked in my favour. I settled with a 72% of all that we owned.
Hugs to all here ❤️
I don’t understand their refusal to take their stuff except maybe it is another power play/ continuation of abuse.
My ex left with almost nothing. I practically had to beg him to take his late grandfather’s wedding ring.
He didn’t want the house so I took it in the divorce. I had spent the intervening year storing his stuff in various closets/ garage. He didn’t ask for any property beyond what he had taken so I slowly got rid of it after the divorce was final.
Two years after that he emailed asking if he could drop by and get the rest of his stuff! I did respond because I didn’t want him showing up unannounced and told him he didn’t have anything left in my house after two years. The absolute gall is infuriating.
I dated quite a bit before I got married and the times I initiated breakups with a few nice but incompatible guys, I basically composed odes to all their amazing qualities and my certainty that they would lead wonderful lives and make someone very happy. I meant every word. It’s what you do when you’re genuinely done with a relationship, have no intention of circling back around later, aren’t keeping them around as Plan B and actually hope they move on to other fulfilling relationships, etc. You leave them in good shape so they can move on. That’s what makes it clear to me that when FWs viciously attack chumps on their way out, the behavior– like all domestic abuse– is intended to paralyze, not liberate. It’s a way to put a dagger through the victim’s shoe by destroying self esteem so the victim is hobbled and without hope, feels like a mutant and unfit to be loved so that, when the abuser decides to show up again, the victim will basically be lying inert and bleeding exactly where they fell.
In answer to the OPs question of whether the FW is “keeping the door open,” of course… by so severely injuring the OP that she can’t get up off the floor to close the damn door. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been so vicious. That doesn’t mean that FWs always do circle back. They might get distracted “out there” or be kept on a very short leash by an AP. But exiting with viciousness signals at least the initial intention to keep that option open. It’s a bit like how foxes bury half eaten carcasses in order to have snacks to dig up later. It’s a pretty strong bet they’ll be showing up again to dangle hopium, lovebomb, or try to keep the victim engaged by stirring up shit, refusing to sign divorce papers, etc.
I think of it as categorical battering. People who do this are batterers– in other words, dangerous and criminally disordered, factory flawed and unfixible. If chumps feel hollow, caved in, dependent and limp after being treated this way, that’s because they’ve been battered and should seek hardcore resources and support geared to survivors of domestic violence. Considering the OP’s abuser had literally been trying to get her committed prior the first D-Day, the shoe really fits in this instance. The new thinking on domestic violence is that the overwhelming majority of it and the most devastating aspects of it entail paralyzing, coercive psychological and emotional abuse, at least this is what most survivors report: that the psychological abuse is typically more devastating than even physical violence. Most batterers operate on a “beat-by-need” basis and prefer less athletic, less legally risky methods of paralyzing prey so that the most skilled abusers may not even need to lift a finger to that end.
You once again described my life of abuse perfectly. He likely DID want to stymie me so that I would not have the strength to extricate myself form his web. He wanted cake/strange and was going for it but didnt want to erase his plan B.
THIS^^^^^
I agree with what you’ve said, and just like you, I never ended a relationship without letting them know I truly valued them as a person even if I didn’t want to continue the romantic relationship. FW’s, however, have multiple reasons for their viciousness clueing what you’ve listed above.
I want to add to that list all the things that are routinely discussed here. They become vicious in order to provoke responses from the Chump — whether it’s anger or being utterly pathetic. If we are a pile of sobbing rubble, it’s proof we’re not stable. If we grow angry, we are just meanies. If we smoke the Hopium and try to be kind, we are just trying to fool them. We chumps are going to lose image management because they stack the deck, cheat, and decide in advance that we are at fault. That is, by the way, also how they convince themselves that Schmoopie is preferable.
The worst part is that anyone at all, including ourselves, even pauses to wonder about our reactions. I vividly recall hearing Tammy Faye Bakker many years ago describe how when she found out her slimy husband, fraud minister Jim Bakker, had cheated on her that she “lay on the floor sobbing for three days.” I couldn’t understand it, but not for the reasons you think; I couldn’t understand why she didn’t rise up and gut him like a fish then expose his entire worthless ministry. My own sweet grandma meekly took back her POS second husband after he left her for a few years for another woman, and although I clearly understood my grandma was wonderful and not at fault, I could never be happy that she “won him back.” I thought the options should clear for a chump: Rise up, sever the relationship with finality, and be a true heroine.
Then my turn came to be chumped and I was all over the board. Furious, despondent, crazy, sweet, angry, desperate, and utterly confused. How does one respond on a fall from a 500- story building?
Looking back, HE changed. He did whatever he thought would make me craziest, he lied again and again in a way I never thought humans could lie, he exposed his nasty, viscous, true self…and at the same time pretended there was hope. His crazy-making was intentional. It truly was abusive.
A cheater wants something and like an ordinary psychopath, they do whatever it takes to get what they want. They emotionally twist and abuse in order to create a monster which justifies their cheating and abandonment. It’s just sick.
Just catching up on posts Hunnybadger and you’ve been on fire on this thread! Holy wow you described my experience
Very helpful theories/observations! So FW is making a logical choice after all, by abusing the Chump as a way to keep options open rather than to set Chump free to “go forth and prosper” without FW. It seems irrational to cling to an abuser, yet observationally, that’s what chumps do. Huh. Well, until we flee for survival, but there was always the question as to whyyyyyy? tysm
Grandma Chump–
When I was doing domestic violence survivor advocacy in college, there were some things I put together on my own from working with survivors, such as the fact that virtually all batterers cheat in some way. It got to the point that I began to suspect that domestic violence was really nothing more than the violent enforcement of one-sided monogamy. I also noticed that, for many battering victims, cheating by the abuser was often the “last straw” before victims would try to escape, a fact that, at the time, was deeply misunderstood and grossly misinterpreted by most bystanders and people in the helping and legal professions.
The victim-blaming assumption of most bystanders, therapists and DAs was that victims didn’t really “mind” the other types of abuse but that cheating by an abuser would trigger jealousy or territoriality which was then doubled back as yet more “proof” that the victim “sought” abuse and abusers for some reason having to do with impaired self esteem or masochism or whatever. But the service I worked for viewed it much differently, mostly because we actually listened to what survivors were saying. What we gathered was that victims often had only one slim reassurance that their abusers wouldn’t outright destroy their lives or kill them: because abusers saw the victims as sexually “useful.” But, by hunting around for sexual service replacements, abusers were signalling that the victims risked losing that one tiny window of mercy. Once the victim was sexually replaced, the gloves would come off and the risk of being ruined or killed would rise.
It’s usually only when the risk of staying in an abusive relationship starts to exceed the very considerable statistical danger of leaving (70-fold increased risk of being killed within two weeks of attempting escape) that victims will often start seeking support and planning their escapes. By that token, it makes perfect sense that cheating– to the degree that it sets off intuitive alarms that the abuser will likely escalate abuse and become more dangerous– would be seen as the “last straw.” Unfortunately DAs would often refuse to prosecute well-documented cases of DV if the victim merely hinted that the abuser was also cheating. So at the darkest hour when victims were most in need of state support, help would be refused. As a result, many survivors learned to keep their mouths shut about the cheating element, a gap which I think is still reflected in the literature on DV and case studies.
I think the increasing modern understanding that fists may not even be necessary to completely paralyze and terrorize victims of domestic abuse and the increasing understanding of “coercive control” tactics will eventually shed some light on why chumps often feel so flattened and crushed– because cheating is a far more malevolent form of abuse than most people understand. I think if a study looking for associations between cheating and domestic violence were ever undertaken, it would predictably turn out the link between violence– even lethal violence– and cheating is very strong and that many cheaters are more likely to eventually become violent or murderous than average. In other words, cheaters have a “batterer smell” and many chumps might be subconsciously picking up on this viable danger. It might explain why many collapse into “possum mode” or Stockholm syndrome in response to the types of emotional abuse that cheaters typically display even if the cheaters haven’t yet been overtly violent.
In other words, going possum really has nothing to do with masochism but is due to a hard-wired survival response to potential risk of death, a way of going into a boxer’s clinch with the dangerous party. In fact, the mechanism is so hard-wired that even veteran intelligence agents are never given whole parcels of state secrets but only bits and pieces because, if the agents are captured and subjected to professional interrogation tactics, it’s expected that most will crack like pinatas, bond with their captors and spill the beans. This is also why, once released, former professional intelligence captives are routinely deprogrammed to break whatever bond they formed with captors (why Stockholm syndrome is also referred to as “captor bonding”).
So do chumps “cling” to cheaters or are they mostly acting like battering victims? I’m waiting for researchers to look into it.
This is a very thought-provoking and informative post Hell of A Chump, thank you.
A couple of weeks ago my STBX did a classic hoover, and when he didn’t get what he wanted i.e. me to let him move back in here and play the “Let’s Pretend Nothing Ever Happened” game, so he could go on using me, using my gaff and emotionally abusing and betraying me all the more as punishment for chucking him out, he did a “Let’s just be friends” bait and switch. I didn’t react at all, just accepted it and then he caught me in a “hug” that was more like a fecking headlock,with just a bit too much pressure that hurt, albeit just a small bit, but it hurt nevertheless and said “I’ve never tried to strangle you have I, Baby?” I said “No”, the he said “I’ve never beaten you up, have I?”!!! Again I replied “No” but was thinking “What IS this???” I asked my best mate , who is herself a survivor of DV, was it a veiled threat, and she said “Of COURSE it was!”.
I had a good long think for myself on waking up the following morning at 4am, and came to the conclusion he’s now a threat to me and emailed him that I wanted an Annulment which means we have to get a divorce first. I was cool but pleasant. Anyway, he waited until that night to respond and he’d had all bloody day! He rang me and I let out some of my anger, then he turned up and kept ringing the doorbell and wouldn’t feck off so I opened the door , probably shouldn’t have, and let him have it! I fed him rocks Mate, and he was gobsmacked! The I told him to “F*%” off!”
The last weekend he ended up climbing the side wall of my house to get to his shed in the back garden because I wouldn’t let him in because my adult son wasn’t here! I ended up calling the Gardai( Irish police) and they went round to have a word but he wasn’t there, but his mother would have been and I know the neighbours would have told them because they’re dead nosy round there, lol! Anyway, he has loads of his stuff here in my garage still and though he was all “please” and “thanks” by text on collecting the last lot, which was outside and we didn’t have to go out to him at all, he still rang my mobile twice and then the house phone first! It goes without saying I didn’t answer either phone and only responded by text and was “grey rock” in my replies. I suppose what I’m concerned with is, IS HE A THREAT TO ME???
I was never remotely scared of him before (and he was so quiet, and I so straightforward, you’d think I was the dominant one) so I’d be very interested in your take on this Hell of A Chump, because you are very well informed and insightful and I was so anxious and even a small bit panicked last time he was ringing me! Thanks.
Hey Shadow, I was late to this original post and thread but I saw your question to HOAC. Worried about you and thought I’d try to offer a reply although I don’t have HOAC’s experience. I am a survivor myself though so here goes…
This is just my take – this man is absolutely a threat to you. All the red flags on this one. I wrote a long reply to you that just got deleted as I’m on my mobile device but the short version is, report the shed and fake hug / headlock incidents with police. Immediately. Do not delay.
Your STBX is escalating and that is dangerous for you.
“I was never remotely scared of him before (and he was so quiet, and I so straightforward, you’d think I was the dominant one)”
This description is chilling and in my view fits the personality type of Chris Watts – covert, quiet and lethal to his wife and children.
He is more than likely not who you think he is. He is dangerous.
No verbal comms now with your STBX. Text or email only.
Get support. Your friend is 100% correct about the reality. Get help. Don’t put yourself at risk by being in his presence on your own ever again or even engaging with him in public. Now it should be all business: Lawyers, police, DV agency, buddy system and document everything in writing. Report anything that seems off and be extra extra careful. Change routines etc.
Safety first, now and always. Thinking of you and hope this helps in some way.
Thanks Samasara, you’ve echoed what my counsellor, my best mate, my Confessor and the gardai have said to me and the more reinforcement I get the more it encourages me and clarifies my mind because FWs don’t half confuse and befuddle you, don’t they, if you let them?
I’m going to the Court House in the city centre today to discuss a Court Order and to talk to a woman from the DV shelter, Adapt. The gardai have taken this very seriously and have already rang me a couple of times to check am I OK and told me to ring them anytime I think I need them, which is also reassuring.
If only I could get all his stuff off my property altogether, he’d have no excuse whatsoever to come back round here at all! I shall be asking today where I stand legally on the matter.
My best mate says I should “front him out” and give him one more warning, because of the dangerous people he’s involved with i.e. drug dealers associated with a low-level organised crime family in the city. My counsellor said I might consider meeting him in a public place to gently warn him and give him a chance to “save face”. He’s also warned me to try to avoid antagonising him too much because otherwise he might “flood” with stress hormones and that would make him all the more dangerous. FFS!
I am still waiting to hear from my son’s friend regarding moving ex’s stuff to his parents’ place. It’d be a real relief if they would but I can’t make them, and it is a big enough ask, so I’d understand.
I suppose I’ll see what they say today inside in the Court House. I’ll post on here later on with what they say to me. Thanks again, I really appreciate the support and advice!
Honestly Shadow I am relieved reading your reply that you have the police in your corner and you’re getting the same feedback regarding your STBX from different angles – that must solidify things and clear the confusion for you that he is not a safe person for you.
Stay with your intuition now.
Respectfully disagree with your Counsellor about meeting him anywhere. Not even a public place. His stuff is not that important. Best case scenario you pack it all up in a neat easy-to-transport way and have the gardai and some other people with you lurking around while he collects. Daylight collection only. Plenty of witnesses and have it all ready to go.
May also be a good idea to get a door bell security camera that you can operate from your phone. It shows you who is at your front door with a time and date stamp.
The reason I disagree with your Counsellor is that I believe he will get aggravated regardless of how you fawn with him, especially if he thinks you’re skipping out of his control. You’re on a war footing now. No point to pretend. Just like my mother used to tell us “nothing good happens after 2am”, CL & CN might say there is no good can come from further contact with a FW. Stay strong and stay disciplined. Don’t give him an inch behind your armour now. Cut the head off the snake and show him that you’re not playing. Surround yourself with allies and keep your head on a swivel. He sounds like he might enjoy blindsiding you so be alert.
Don’t take risks. Not worth it.
Keep us updated here. I’ll check back.
Hi Samsara, well, I went into the Court House on Monday and spoke to the woman from the DV place and she told me to ask the gardai to ring him and tell him he had to remove his stuff within a couple of weeks at a time that suited my son and me. I did that, the guard rang him and he panicked a bit, texting me would I answer the phone if he rang me. I didn’t of course and unplugged the house phone. Then I emailed him and told my son to message him to check his emails, so he replied he’d come this morning with his brother and a truck.
They’ve been and gone now, my son dealt with them and they’ve got most of it but the brother had to go to work, so now he’s going to let my son know when he’s coming back for the last few bits! My son will be at work from mid afternoon and won’t be back ’til nearly 10 tonight so I hope he gets it over with soon! He bought a shed which is concreted into my back garden as well, so that’ll need clearing too. Bloody hell!
Anyway, I told my son to tell him to leave the strimmers and lawn mower because they’re replacements- the strimmer for a really good petrol one I bought years ago, that he ruined the blades of on his horrible aunt’s back garden because it was full of rocks! The lawn mower replaced my father’s old one! My son said he wasn’t too happy about that and wanted to strim the front and back gardens HIMSELF! Can you Adam and Eve that??? He really isn’t right in the head, is he?
My son told him one of his mates is going to do it and he replied that this young fella would be “too lazy” to do it! You couldn’t make it up!I can’t believe he’s still pushing to do jobs around the place after everything! Madness!
Anyway, now the gardai are involved, even if only informally, I reckon he’s wary and will behave himself. He only texted and rang my son today, not me, as he now knows I won’t answer! I won’t let him get into my head again because I know what he is!
Thank you so much for your concern and advice, Samsara, it makes all the difference when people take you seriously and NO I will NOT be meeting him nor speaking to him at all! I will only email and once the divorce and annullment are complete I won’t even do that anymore!
Good for you Shadow, glad things are ok. Great to have the police contacting him — that will hopefully rein in anything rogue if he had it in mind, but regardless you should still be very careful. The next thing in my arsenal would be seeking a restraining order if he keeps mucking up as he should not be coming onto the property at all. Perhaps as a first “shot across the bow” your lawyer can send a letter warning him that you do not wish him to attend the property for any reason going forward and maybe have the gardai inform him of that wish.
Anyhow, keep all your the people on your team informed and stay alert! Come over to the reddit forum as there is also a chat 24/7 that you can access. Hugs and good luck.
I used the storage locker method with Jackass. I moved most of his stuff into a locker in the middle of a sub-zero polar vortex. It was brutal. I had a lock with two keys and mailed him one of them and told him he had 60 days to move his stuff or I would empty the locker and take everything to Goodwill. The only issue with the storage locker issue is that you can’t rent the locker in someone else’s name (at least here) and I didn’t want to just abandon stuff or keep paying. It’s a great solution if you think the specific fuckwit will pick up his stuff.
Then get out the paint and start re-arranging the furniture. Make the place your own!
My ex left his stuff, too, but I knew the real reason why: in case his relationship with AP blew up. He was keeping me as his backup plan. So kind of him, ain’t life grand?
Obviously, I quickly filed for divorce and actually got a better settlement because he was still in NRE with his AP. Both were amazed by my behavior: they really thought I was being such a good sport, so accommodating, and so willing to move on without drama. Ha. Less than a year later, they had split (in a blaze of glory!) and he had to move in with his parents. All while I twirled around our big marital home, free of FW and his crap.
Yes, good point, Mary. Newly should move on this situation and get legal while he’s still infatuated with his whore.
The image of you twirling around the house, fuckwit free, made me smile.
I had consulted an attorney during the first separation, and she warned me that you really shouldn’t dump or sell your STBX’s stuff. She said to consolidate it in the house/garage or move it to storage where they have access. As much as possible, get agreement on what they want via email although it doesn’t have to be too detailed. There are legal reasons why, and it can slow or stall negotiations, so I personally didn’t go there.
A friend left her abusive husband a year ago when he was at work, and her attorney said to be very careful to only take her stuff. It was a marriage of only two years, so that wasn’t hard. There were not a lot of wedding gifts, and she only took the gifts from her side of the family and her friends. Apparently, he was OK with what she took because that wasn’t the controversy. Their divorce is still raging almost a year later, but so it is.
My ex had suitcases when he chose to live in another state, so I had to send things. I also packed boxes/suitcases for the few times he came after that. He wanted the house sold after he decided not to live here again, and I was fine with that, figuring I needed the money. My days of hopium use pretty much ended then. I moved out to a rental and carefully asked him what he wanted and consolidated his stuff, doing some packing because boxes can be stacked, making more room. He arrived, hoping we’d go with him, but we were out and planned to stay here. That caused fireworks.
In retrospect, I wish that I had just moved all his stuff to a storage unit at some point, and the moving van could have taken it from there, but hindsight is better than foresight. He had a lot of tools which have been a pain to pack up anyway.
“A friend left her abusive husband a year ago when he was at work, and her attorney said to be very careful to only take her stuff.”
I think that is wise and just common sense. The one who is leaving, regardless of the reason should never take anything except his/her own personal items. Joint items should be determined by the court, or if possible between the two parties.
I do think that I was fortunate that my fw had wrapped himself around the workplace auger, and he was scared shitless to do anything to bring attention to his nastiness. He was already in enough of a shitstorm having to deal with the reality of his whore-worker and his lies to everyone.
Newly, it probably is about keeping you as a plan b in case his new “love” turns out to be a dud. When it fizzles out, he expects to be able to waltz right back in the house and ask what’s for supper as if nothing has happened. So I hope you changed the locks.
The fact that he already suspects his new relationship will fail tells you all you need to know about the depth of his “love” for her, for anyone. No human being matters that much to him. Sadly, that does include his own child. So do as CL suggests. He is not going to do the right thing for his daughter without being forced.
I’m sorry you got stuck breeding with a stick figure instead of a man. Your life will improve the less he’s in it.
Careful… if you’re thinking he might come back (hopium is strong, just ask your daughter)… shut down that option. You are his back-up plan now – is that good enough for you and your daughter?
When Mr. Sparkles left, it was to move into his own apartment (he had told his discard-me-for-her OW that we were already separated, so he had a charade to build up)… I helped him take furniture from our home to help make it more comfortable for when our son was there on visitation… she sat on my f*cking couch. I can’t even.
But, I digress. When I found ChumpLady and ChumpNation, I found my sanity and my tribe. I gathered up whatever was left of his and moved it to the garage. He had even left behind his auto tech toolbox (should’ve sold that for thousands). He refused to move anything else out of the house because the OW advised him that in the divorce it would look like he abandoned the marital home (which he wanted 50% buyout of). Douchebag. So, once the divorce was finalized (I filed, of course), he had 10 days to come and get his stuff which meant he was moving out right New Years Eve day… this did not make him happy, but since he procrastinated, I consider it karma.
The irony… he has zero friends and the OW had dumped him by then for cheating on her… so my adult stepsons had to help him… he was mortified… #winning.
You can do this. Your daughter needs to see you doing this… being strong, establishing boundaries, saying “no” to abusive relationships. You can do this.
Every move out situation is different, of course, but I had an odd case where we had already agreed to divorce, but had a home and an apartment already set up because of our work. In addition, I had to make sure there was a decent place for my children. So, late in December, just before our divorce was final, he took the boys to Florida for a week. I took that time to hire help and get every single thing that was mine before our marriage, or that I wanted to keep from our marriage. He had come into the relationship with virtually nothing. The furniture we had bought together, I split between us. I gave the house a good cleaning, and set it back up for him to live in until it was sold, or if he found another place before then, until he moved out.
I put some stuff I could not put into my apartment into storage. I intended to buy another house after our home sold. Of course, he was furious when he came home, because I had made all the decisions. But everything about the actual properties we owned was in the divorce, which finalized the first day in January of the new year. I also pointed out I had saved him a lot of time and trouble and left him in a clean place to live. He asked what if he wanted something personal, I had packed away. I told him to make me a detailed list, and we would talk about it, and if he really wanted it after our talk, I’d consider it. Of course, he never made a list. I was sure I left everything personal of his already, and after he calmed down, he realized I had actually done a very smart thing and avoided a long-drawn-out argument as everything left the house.
I wanted the boys to feel familiar in their environment, and as we had been separated, and the custody agreement was already set up, it really suited everyone. It was a lot of work for me, but I was excited about the marriage finally being done, and I had one week to accomplish my goals. I had to be efficient.
I hated to sell that house, we had built it and I had hoped it would be our forever home. But I could not be married to him anymore, and the home was not close to my work. He traveled so much, he never really needed a home. He wouldn’t know how to take care of it anyway.
The last rebound ex I had was very short term, and had few possessions. I boxed up his stuff and dropped it off at his mother’s house. Then I cleaned MY home top to bottom, and purged anything which reminded me of him. It is sad that we have to be the sane marital dissolution partner as well as the sane parent, but there it is. My sons did amazingly well I think they were as relieved as I was. They still saw their dad, and they still had a bit of home no matter where they were at the moment.
Good planning, and good boundaries make for better relationships, I think. We got along better after the divorce, because I always put the children’s needs first. After a turbulent 20-year marriage, it was great to have a bad situation resolved. Things didn’t matter as much to me then as my freedom.
My goodness, you have several options for dealing with this. If you are renting, why not relocate and leave his stuff right where it currently sits? Let him worry about where YOU are. If you own, you could invest in a burn barrel, carry out to the barrel and light that s&&& up. If you are worried about local ordinances regarding burning, well, load the stuff up and take it to Goodwill. They’d love to have it. If you decide to stay where you are, change the locks, call a lawyer, and then go forward with the barrel or the Goodwill option. And speaking of good will: I don’t think he harbors any toward you.
Your daughter is getting jacked around and mindfucked even more than you are. Don’t be part of that fuckery. Tell her the truth immediately.
“Partner” for 16 years?! Nine year old child together?! Well, sounds like he (unless it was you…and I doubt it from your letter) had one foot out the door the entire “partnership”.
PS: Sounds like it’s YOUR house. So he was mooching free accommodations, too?! Sounds like you didn’t “just” become a chump five weeks ago!
Amazing to me how they all act the same way.
“D-Day came and his switch flipped. He was now a complete stranger to me, cold, hostile and aggressive, blamed me for everything and basically tore me and our relationship to shreds while I begged, pleaded and sobbed for forgiveness and a chance to make things right.”
I know its untangling the skein but why do they go cold, hostile, aggressive?
I agree with CL get a lawyer, get him to pay for his kid ASAP. They are usually more willing to sign stuff and agree to things when they are still enthralled with schmoopie. Once sparkle wears off, no.
I would donate his stuff. Get rid of it. Or pack it away in boxes put in garage, or take to his parents house. You could keep the important stuff, passport, ect, get rid of the rest. If he wanted it he would have come for it. He probably starting anew with everything brand new. New honey, sneakers, underwear. If you get rid of stuff and he ever brings it up. Deny, deny, deny. Stick with that narrative. No idea what you are talking about. Honestly, you didnt have much, there were just a few items such as a few tee shirts that I donated. End of story.
I put every piece of clothing etc and mailed in 3 big moving boxes to his office. No reason for him to drop by the house anymore (kids grown). Changed every account password…and codes to house alarm and doors. Once he was served there was legally now no contact. I have no idea what he thought about any of it…..but I was over trying to compete for a place already legally mine in a marriage of 38 years!
My fuckwit moved out two years ago and we agreed at the time that I would keep the furniture and the deposit on the apartment.
Now my fuckwit is coming around insisting that I owe half of the deposit and half of the value of the furniture.
I wish I had thrown it all in the trash.
I moved all my belongings to the sunporch and then to our vacant rental property. FW had months to ask me to change my mind.
I will never forgive him for putting my wonderful younger brother in the position of watching me take apart a 30 year marriage. And I had to file for divorce, of course. We chumps are mighty.
I remember asking my lawyer how long the ex had to get the rest of his crap.
He replied “ a reasonable amount of time.”
I then asked “ What’s reasonable?”
He replied “ Whatever you decide, I’ll make it reasonable!”
Gotta love my lawyer!!!
Yes, he is definitely leaving things at your place to keep it open as an option. Not you as an option, but his stuff, or your place as a storage unit, or to drop by and take a dump in the toilet on his way to somewhere else because it was closer than going by the gym. Or to keep his girlfriend doing the pick-me-dance. Or for plausible deniability that he hadn’t actually abandoned his child.
This is a classic cheater move. My cheater had moved into his parents’ basement just two blocks away, but weeks would go by with him saying he was going to pick up his shit, and then something more important would always come up. If I said something about leaving his stuff outside for him, he would threaten to come over and take half of everything, or to sue me for damages. As if anything he owned had any value.
I moved all his stuff, mixed in with whatever I wanted to get rid of, into a heaping pile in the basement, just to get it out of the way, but I finally got some movement when I started leaving larger items on his parents front porch. He made a big deal about coming over to get his things then, and how he would need unfettered access for at least an an hour to decide what he was going to take, but when I left him to his own devices going through his pile of crap, he quickly lost steam. He ended up 10 minutes later only taking a belt and a screwdriver and leaving behind his birth certificate, pictures of the kids, his grandmother’s chest of drawers…
He came back later for the Big Green Egg, though. I had bought it for him for his birthday just a few months earlier. I told him it was mine now because he had already had his chance to get his things and the rest he had abandoned for me to deal with.
That’s when he stepped up to me (first time ever being physically threatening) and threatened to sue me (he’s a shitty lawyer). The fact that he would threaten the mother of his children over custody of a ceramic barbecue, really hit home to me who he really was.
It sits, now, forgotten and cobwebbed, on his parents’ back porch 5 years later, a physical monument to his extreme pettiness and need to control.
I should have rolled it down the hill when I had a chance, but I kind of like the idea that his parents will someday have to deal with it when he abandons them.
In the meantime, they think that by letting him live with them rent free, he will take care of them when they get really old and feeble. Lol 😂
Oh, yeah, and the other thing he asked about was his wedding ring. He had left it behind to go on a date but thought better of it because he thought he might be able to sell it. Seriously? Fuck off. I had thrown it in the pile. 😂
So I didn’t want the house. It was filled top to bottom with his stuff. A whole room was a monument to his dead relatives. Another room packed with future faking projects, the garage stuffed with mementos from the 13 jobs he’d had in our 32 years together. Then the garage full of forsaken tools and tons of junk. 2 sheds full of piles of other crap. I would need a moving van and heavy lifters to empty the house. So I chose to leave it. I also left ALL THE WEDDING stuff hidden all over the house for when he moved in. Marriage Encounter candles in his bathrobe pockets, wedding album in his drawer by the bed, wall wedding pictures in his closet, other wedding paraphernalia under the mattress he would soon invite OWs to bed in. I left behind a huge album of all the B&Bs we went to with the stories behind our trips, I put that on his trailer in the basement. I hid all our stuff all over like a hide and seek project. It was sweet revenge. Yes I know he did not care but it did get a rise out of him because when he took possession of the house, put all our wedding things in a pile, took a photo of them and texted me…”is this how you treat something of value”? That from a man who had multiple cheating event’s and abused me in every way possible. My divorce date is coming up and I will mail him our marriage certificate and a plaque that has our names engraved in brass from our 25th Anniversary. I didn’t have to burn anything of value. He could trash them himself. I’m then on my way to MEH! I suggest a purge and get on with life. They are not worth the salt in a tear. You will see sorry and they are not.
I’m sorry you went through that. My house is chock full of stuff too. My mom just passed away. I have no energy to clean right now.
FWs leaving their stuff at the homes they are leaving is designed for control, I am sure. My FW expressed this very well out loud, actually. As the apartment I live in belongs to my family, he had no rights to it, so the moment he discarded me I asked him to take some clothes and come back later for the rest of his stuff, AND leave the key inside. And then he said “But if I leave the key here, I will need to schedule a specific day and time with you to pick up my stuff”. I started wondering if he understood what was happening, but answered “Of course you will. This is not your home any longer.”
So we scheduled a day a couple of days later. I asked him to take anything that was his or that we had bought together. I couldn’t face it so my family went to my place to let him in and back out. When I came back home, I found out he had left piles of the joint stuff and a few of his clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe. I asked him to come again a second time, and I was there this time to make sure he took everything. He asked me if the clothes still hanging in the wardrobe were his! I had to take them out myself. This is the first reason that got me thinking must be a brain tumour.
I now think this was designed to either give me a reason to think he didn’t 100% want to leave (you know, just 75% or something, sheesh) or to force me to keep in touch with him. At the time I was just utterly confused and made sure he had no reasons to contact me, other than divorce logistics.
So NOT Plan B!
Maybe its like a dog that pees on a bush and returns to the same spot to sniff again and again. It’s an ancient memory of ownership and territory. Must keep going back!! Hey that was mine!!!
My lawyer had Mr take pictures of each room before and after i left my STBXH. It was a shock to see how full of his things the house was. I had very little after 30+ years. Sad truth. I went from a big house to 600 Sq feet so left the house and everything in it before my STBXH got the house back that he wanted. That way he could not claim I stole from him. Follow your lawyers advice! Stay smart and safe
I’d be tempted to rent a dumpster, fill it, and have it hauled off.
But Chump Lady’s solution of renting a storage unit and paying for a month is probably best. That way, the chump can’t be accused of stealing his property. If he doesn’t pay the rent, or remove the items from the unit, they’ll be auctioned off.
I’d be tempted to rent a dumpster, fill it, and have it hauled off.
But Chump Lady’s solution of renting a storage unit and paying for a month is probably best. That way, the chump can’t be accused of stealing his property. If he doesn’t pay the rent, or remove the items from the unit, they’ll be auctioned off.
I emailed the storage unit in the city yesterday; they’ve replied this morning and the owner of the goods would have to be the one who rented the unit and signed for it, so I’m stuck again! FFS!
The law is different here in Ireland I suppose. Between the guards, solicitors, the woman from the DV shelter and others, my heads spinning! I just want his stuff GONE! And him! Then I want to sell up and go! Why does it have to be so bloody drawn out and difficult? I should never have married him!