Why Didn’t You Fight for Me?
Among the stupidest shit cheaters say is “Why didn’t you fight for me?” As if they’re a great prize you could’ve won if only your pick me dance was better.
***
After being betrayed, chumps are often faced with the bewildering accusation that they didn’t try hard enough to win the cheater back.
“Why didn’t you fight for me?” is DARVO.
They’re the real victims of your neglect. Not cheaters who were, in fact, neglecting you. Gosh, all this unpleasantness could’ve been avoided if only you’d tried harder.
Robin writes:
“I thought I had an adoring husband and a great marriage. He did really nice things for me, and everyone thought I had the best husband of all my friends. But what I had was someone who was a very good liar. I found out the unimaginable. He had multiple affairs with women in my church. And, oh by the way, he was a deacon in our church for many years. I was so blindsided, and so was everyone else in our family in our community.
“I left him one week after I found out and filed for divorce. He told me….”
“I can’t lie. I’m a little hurt you didn’t fight for me.”
FW
Oh, the poor Jesus cheater. He’s a little hurt! What are these consequences? He was sure a fight would break out for him in the choir loft. Church ladies would hurl their panties at him. And the victor would drag him back to the rectory for a little “Bible study.”
Robin, can’t you see what a prize this sociopath is? How can you throw away such a magnificent person? He’s so very disappointed in you.
Way to be mighty, Robin. You saw right through his bullshit.
“Why didn’t you fight for me” is an invitation to do the pick me dance.
Apparently, a divorce summons was not the response he was expecting. No, he thought you’d play his rigged game. The one that gives you a false sense of control that you can win a different outcome. If only you accept fault for his cheating.
Alas, so many chumps fall for this. It never occurs to us that the checked out party (the cheater) should be the one putting in more effort. Encouraged by the Reconciliation Industrial Complex the cheater’s entitlement is a given. Well of course he had to cast about! The chump wasn’t fighting for the marriage!
Marriages are not cage fights.
Commitment means you’re not supposed to have rivals. Healthy relationships are based on mutuality and respect. One of you isn’t Caesar sitting in a colosseum giving the thumbs up or down about whether his gladiators live or die. Hey, this would be a lot more interesting with lions.
No! We reject tyrants!
Of course, “Why didn’t you fight for me?” doesn’t look like malignant narcissism. It’s sad, timid forest creature self-pity. I’m not an autocrat who demands humiliating contests, I’m a poor foster kitten in a box. I thought you’d take me home. But no, so this other kind stranger picked me up instead.
So, CN, how many of you heard the “Why didn’t you fight for me?”
Thankfully I was never on the receiving end of the “Why didn’t you fight for me?” line; once busted for her cheating and so much more, Ex-Mrs LFTT made it very clear that she saw her AP as her future …. even though she continued to deny having had an affair in the first place.
If the question had been asked, I suspect my response would have been along the lines of “Why would I fight for someone who made it clear that she didn’t want me, didn’t respect me, didn’t value me and didn’t feel the need to keep the vows that she made to me?”
LFTT
Spot on. I didn’t get “why didn’t you fight for me” specifically, probably because as soon as I found out I walked out of his poxy flat and filed, and went total no contact – all communication went through my solicitor. And if I had, my response would have been yours, but much ruder! He did say, however, when he came over to collect all his shite, (which I threw into bin bags higgledy piggledy, and he was very aggrieved because I didn’t fold his Para blazer and all his clothes neatly 😂) “so you’re just going to throw 24 years down the drain?”. You betcha, dickhead.
CNM6,
He put the relationship in the toilet and cr*pped all over it …. you just flushed it.
LFTT
Exactly! It’s just so lopsided. Our 200% for their 10%.
You know, one of my favorite movies is Aladdin. There’s that fantastic bit where Princess Jasmin shuts the eponymous hero down for the “prize to be won”. I think about that a lot…why I picked up on that and fuckwits must’ve stopped their narrative investment at “Princess.”
JW,
Ex-Mrs LFTT made the classic “Cheater Mistake” ….. she thought that she was the “prize” when (cue drum roll) it was me all along.
LFTT
PREACH IT, KING!
“I’m a little hurt”?!! Again, it is all about the Cheater in this statement. The audacity!! Well, he should be glad it is only a “little hurt” as that might be all his tiny, selfish heart can muster. He certainly has no remorse for the wreckage his sins created! This is more evidence that the faithful spouse has NOTHING to work with and is wise to move on from him.
It absolutely blows my mind that these FW’s literally do have the same ole tired lines. Mine created envy as well… Look her husband does the dishes and the laundry, never mind that he’ll do anything that moves as well. I know some of our acquaintance think “He was so good to her and she didn’t even give him a chance”. My cheater saw it the same way too “she hurt me way more than I hurt her” and why doesn’t she forgive me for “this one small flaw, now cured”. Oh, and then the prize of all prizes he’s an addict that should be pitied, not condemned. Not his fault. He lost his job over his illicit forms of cheating and used that last one as excuse why he should not have to pay alimony or child support. And sadly, our divorce judge bought that load of crap. Did I mention that my soon to be ex was an internist and has more money than I’ll ever see? But ladies, we always have to look at the silver lining. I may have lost alimony and child support, but his lovely addiction claim gave me full custody with no visitation and not having to coparent with a FW. Priceless!
” gave me full custody with no visitation and not having to coparent with a FW.”
JACKPOT!! So much more valuable than money.
Yes, indeed and my ex cheater put his own special spin on it by telling me “the OW told him she would have fought for him if she was married to him”.
I too am just shaking my head at this one. Priceless indeed!
Oh I can’t handle that one!! Chutzpah!!!
Hahahaha, that’s priceless!
“We were worth fighting for. You are the coward who quit and ran away.”
There are some real class acts in this world.
Haha, I read this wrong at first. I thought it was a response to the question of why didn’t you fight for me? The chump saying “We were worth fighting for” in response to any concerns about the marriage and calling the cheater out on the act of cowardice for quitting and running away (by cheating).
It’s a mighty response when read that way.
Yes, I was the “coward” who quit and ran away. Left a cheater….gained a life. Kicked myself in the ass for a while for not having left sooner.
Recently, I reviewed text messages I had saved that I thought would be relevant to Custody negotiations for an upcoming court thing again. These messages were ones I hadn’t seen in years.
I couldn’t believe how much I reasoned and begged and pleaded with a clearly out-of-his-mind bipolar heroin addict who bailed on his preliminary hearing after being arrested for drug trafficking at his home right before he was supposed to have supervised visitation there just so he could go on a date with his former co-worker.
We were already separated for over a year, and I was doing the same single-parent thing after graduating and starting my dream career. I never wanted to be a single parent and made every attempt to facilitate a relationship between FW and my oldest. The only conditions I put in place were my preschool-age child had to be safe and couldn’t be around known substance abusers, and my ex needed a minimum of 6 months of sobriety before he could be around our kid, which was reasonable.
Apparently, to that FW, I was picking fights, always trying to argue, and constantly having mood swings… He would violently change what he said mid-conversation to goad me into a defensive pick-me dance.
What stood out to me was how he lamented that he didn’t have a rock; I was his rock; he had supporters, but now, no rock. My response was that if you hold onto a Rock while you are in tumultuous waters, you will sink, and I couldn’t let him drag me and our kid down with him, so I had to let him go and swim to safety, and he shouldn’t resent me for that. He flipped into I don’t resent you then saying he resented me for thinking I was better than him, and I moved on too quickly and on and on. I would redirect the conversation back to our kid, and he would try to change it into the flipping from pity party to the rage cycle mid-text message.
I remember I was up at midnight doing continuing education for my career and still had to get the kid to preschool in the morning, go to work, and do a billion other adult things when I told him I was done. We could communicate through lawyers after that. Restraining orders followed, and I’m still dealing with this FW nearly a decade later with no end in sight. It’s funny how he claimed the support he got was never good enough, considering he has had various women fund his legal battles, but he still won’t ask about how his kid is doing.
Time and distance lead to perspective, and if anything,g, I have learned that all FWs use the same techniques on their chumps. It sucks when it happens, and you uncover a new depth to the betrayal because someone you thought would be there for you; family, in my experience, using the exact words during the pity party and rage cycles, the same DARVO, and they all want the exact cake and kibbles.
MovingOn, sounds like you’re a mountain, not a rock. Talk about mighty!
Communicating through lawyers is expensive, and you mentioned an upcoming court thing. Are you still supposed to communicate about your child, despite the restraining order? If so, the OurFamilyWizard app, often recommended by many courts and lawyers, lets you communicate directly but on the record, so if you have to go to court again, it’s there for all to see. You might ask your attorney to have the court require this.
So sorry he continues to chip away at you, your child, your finances and your patience. Stay mighty!
Thanks, GoodFriend.
The ROs are long expired. My dad was the designated 3rd party communicator when they were in place. He never got a hold of my dad during that time. We tried to have him voluntarily terminate his parental rights for step-parent adoption while he was in jail, but he refused, and that was all we could do. My dad died shortly after the ROs expired. We live far away, so it’s a jurisdiction issue.
My first attorney’s law firm represented FW in the same drug case I was basing my custody changes on, which I didn’t find out until after I made too many concessions during the settlement because my attorney said he changed so much and that I needed to move on. He had sketchy legal assistants who were also friends with FW, and I found out my files in with other files. Custody was never changed, and there were no specifics other than through an attorney promptly.
My second attorney was dual jurisdiction, but she switched jobs 3 times in a year, burnt through her support staff, misfiled several significant documents in both jurisdictions, stopped communicating on time after receiving a retainer, and then rage quit because she didn’t like my tone when I brought up that the names and location were utterly wrong. It needed to be fixed right before the initial hearing when I found out about the misfiling stuff in one jurisdiction, there was another issue with a different filing as well. The ROs were factored into the jurisdiction change but not deemed relevant because FW had a local attorney paid for by Bunny Boiler. One jurisdiction is initiating an audit because it has never been allowed to go through.
I was working with a pro-bono place in the state that holds jurisdiction, and the attorney I was working with left the place, which was understandable. She said to send emails regarding unresolved child support and mention custody, which I did. He never followed up on his end, so I have new evidence showing the pattern over many years. After she left, I consulted with another in the same place. I was told my case is too complex and they cannot help.
I’m lucky that we live far away from that insane asylum, so his custodial threats don’t hurt so much anymore, especially since he saying one thing to the court does the exact opposite, which is well-documented. My kid had a few rough years, which was really hard to see, but he got help early on after the move, and he’s found a positive outlet in sports, and I think he’s finally to the point where I can say for the most part he is thriving. The legal system, on the other hand is a soul-sucking nightmare, and I can’t wait to be done.
The system is rotten and the attorneys collude with corrupt judges to maximize fees while dragging your case forever. Mine has lasted 18 years and still going, till last kid turns 21.
The lion, the witch, and the audacity of that bitch!
I have maybe a decade left of dealing with this nonsense. I hope your finish line is much closer. May the odds be ever in your favor.
MovingOn, you’re not just a mountain, you’re the Everest of mountains. I know Tracy says we’re not in the pain Olympics, but surmounting those legal injustices was like a marathon of climbing.
“Rage quit” is a great term for that awful second lawyer.
You also wrote, My first attorney’s law firm represented FW in the same drug case I was basing my custody changes on, which I didn’t find out until after I made too many concessions during the settlement because my attorney said he changed so much and that I needed to move on. He had sketchy legal assistants who were also friends with FW, and I found out my files in with other files.
Every legal office I’ve ever called automatically asks for my name and the name of the other party(ies), then runs it through their list of clients and contact to see if there’s an potential conflict of interest, not just with their attorneys but also with their paras. One law firm said they couldn’t take me because one of their paras had worked for a different firm that represented me and Fraudster (together) in a prior case. For a while, and maybe even now, divorcing men were advised to call local family and divorce lawyers and request a free consult in order to keep their spouses from being able to hire that firm.
The actions of those attorneys was so egregious that I hope you’ll consider reporting them, even a decade later. In my state, the state Supreme court has an Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which addresses complaints of this nature. State bar associations also have ethics committees. They may not take action because of the time gap, but it may tip the scales, so to speak, if there are similar complaints n the past or future.
All the best to you and your son.
The para was how I made the connection to FW when I was reviewing stuff after the fact and her name popped out in the email, then another support person working there wound up being friends with FWs girlfriend. The one paralegal whose name I recognized wound up going to prison for drugs, and the one who was friends with/ the GF overdosed. When I confronted my 1st attorney, he said, “Who his staff spend time with outside of the office is inconsequential.” he also said that because his law firm partner represented his ex, it has nothing to do with his representation. He took several months to hand over my file, and he threatened to take me to court. The entire situation was why I switched attorneys in the first place. I wanted to change jurisdiction before filing the complaint because I did not want it to negatively impact my case. I am still within the statute of limitations for the 1st and the 2nd.
Thank you for your kind words; they mean a lot.
I like Tiger Woods wife’s response, a golf club through the windshield seems appropriate. Gotta love that girl.
Lol, don’t mess with the Scandis. I know from my mother’s family and friends from that region that the standards for so-called “feminine” behavior are quite different in certain Nordic countries. Like Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Woebegone denizens, it’s “where the women are strong and the men are good looking.”
But poor Tiger Woods! He’s a sex addict, you can’t blame him for his actions. He even went to a therapy retreat, what a guy. (Which font is the sarcasm one? Idk.)
No words needed..consequences
Robin, I’m so sorry this happened to you, and hjs continued manipulation and guilt-tripping after discovering his cheating.
I’d like to ask chumps here how often “fight for me” was code for “sexually gratify me.”
When I completed the University of Texas Marriage Infidelity Divorce Study Tracy asked us to do, I was surprised to get multiple questions asking if and how the partner pressured or forced sexual intimacy after discovery. It seemed that if you answered “yes,” it asked more questions.
On D-day, I discovered (via his email left open on our bedroom lap top) that he had found an apartment and invited his online AP to move in with him. I found further emails discussing marriage, offers to pay for her college degree and a future business, evidence he’d sent her money, and even a name for their future child. After forwarding the emails to myself, and proving it was a catfish romance scam, I confronted him.
For the rest of that night he pressured me for sex, and he told me it would prove I’d fight for him. Due to the discovery, I was shocked, devastated, and drained, feeling sick mentally, emotionally and physically. I just wanted to sleep and sex was the last thing I wanted to do. He’d had ED for years and refused to admit it. He was turned on by the thought of being fought for. Gross, gross, gross.
One of the survey questions actually stated this was not uncommon. I haven’t seen it discussed much here and I was embarrassed to bring it up myself. I wonder how many cheaters telling chumps to “fight for them” are sexually stimulated by degrading chumps, and are thrilled to be sexually serviced. That’s what it is when they don’t love the chumps.
BTW, although he knew the last thing I wanted was sex with him, and I’d already proven it was a catfish scam, at one point he later told me loftily that he wouldn’t sleep with me again because it would be cheating on “her” and he was faithful. Delulu.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I had one night with my cheater right after dday where he’d been an asshole all day and I cried the hardest I’d cried our entire marriage because he’d thrown the divorce card and I wasn’t thinking straight.
He also wanted sex despite also having had ED for years. Afterwards I felt horrible and didn’t sleep at all while scumbag had a huge smile on his face. All I heard the next day after work was how great his day was.
I knew right then that he got off on thw perceived power imbalance and started thinking that divorce was a good idea.
There were only a couple more times after that I let him touch me and he got absolutely zero reaction from me. I grey rocked him even during sex, at which point he whined that I wasn’t participating. I looked at him and walked away.
He proceeded to send me emails begging me to participate and went on about how horrible it was to be ignored. Yep….doesn’t feel good does it asshole?
I moved into the spare bedroom and he was so terrified that I was going to leave that he pretended everything was fine and didn’t want to rock the boat. He admitted thar he figured I’d “get over it”, as if I was ever going to show him vulnerability again. That was his one and only…..hope he enjoyed it.
I moved out soon after.
He also wanted sex despite also having had ED for years….I knew right then that he got off on the perceived power imbalance
Thanks for sharing and for saying it more succinctly that I did. You summed it up in a (flacid) nutshell.
This was my second cheater with severe ED. The thrill of hurting me over and over by his inability and then going public with his Organ which worked best, apparently, under a cat fight and other stimulus…I’d say it was a thing..and no one would talk about that level of crazy. I’m so sorry for this horrible tactic.. you and me
I especially like that he starts this with ‘I can’t lie.’. Then what the blank have you been doing all this time, you evil man?? Suddenly you can’t lie?? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The first thing that came to my mind was..this was a stanza from the pick me dance. A really hurtful stanza of you didn’t do enough. Never enough..sex, cleaning, attention, centrality, lost weight, cooking skills, bad breath. Add anything to that list plus you didnt continue to beg, drop at his feet, crying endless tears, wrap yourself in Saran wrap,and just do more dancing…because it’s always something else….. but the show, watching you grovel was a ticket he already had in his pocket. I am so sorry he went over the top with hurting you with these manipulating words. The guilt added to the sandwich of poisoned Lunch meat. These people are NOT faithful to God or you. They are despicable liars. You lost absolute ly nothing in this man’s defective character. Listen and read Tracy. Hear us at CN. We know you are enough and you only fight for what is worth fighting for.
At least I never heard that particular line from the book Cheater 101: Things to Say to Make Your Chump Dance. He what he really wanted was sex, pick me dancing and no consequence. Splitting the Assets and doing his part with kids??? They are not interested in that. They want an appliance who can give them sex when Schmoopie is not available, all household chores taken care of, bills paid and so on.He wants centrality and worship.
My exFW kindly offered me an open marriage when he started facing consequences. I politely declined saying that I already had it but was not informed so no, I was not interested in that. Of course, as he held up the process with petty issues, he told Schmoopie that I was responsible because I wanted to stay in the marriage. LOL.
They really do suck, every single day! I am so happy I no longer have to deal with him.
I didn’t get it in those words-I got ” why didn’t you make me feel special?” with this wounded puppy look on her face during D-Day.
Apparently nothing I had done up until that point (~11 years) counted anymore. Taking her to oncology, supporting her financially, cancelling nights out for homework, hell, helping her get on her feet to begin with. I did all of the heavy lifting in the relationship early on.(yes yes, red flags, my dumb ass was in love.)
The term “rigged game” is spot on when this kind of thing happens.
The idiot kept me at arm’s length once the cheating got bad. She made me Pick-Me Dance. She put in zero of her own effort into the household or the relationship. Nothing I did counted, everything I did was wrong, everything I said was only illuminated by gaslight.
Rigged. Game. And I did play for a while. Won’t be doing THAT again!
And toward the end, yes, I stopped fighting. When it finally coalesced for me that monumental effort was just resulting in her ghosting me on date nights and picking fights with me about anything and everything, I just waited for the storm to be over. If she tells people about mood swings this was probably when. Perhaps one day she will even recognize that she put them there.
Of course, that’s when D-Day happened.
I received confirmation that schmoopie stopped fighting, too. Turned out the turd he won wasn’t as fun to be around when somebody wasn’t following her around with a broom and a dustpan emotionally.
The major lesson, as I poke and prod at dating again? I’m not doing that again. They need to put in the effort and get some skin in the game. It is genuinely that simple.
Feliz Jueves!
Haha, even if you don’t “fight” for their spectacular sparkles, they’ll probably tell everyone you did or would both to cast themselves as central and to produce some desired reaction in others.
After D-day, FW pretended to the AP that I would “fight” for him by fabricating all the terrible things I’d do to them both if he left me for her. Like I’d destroy both their careers and reputations forever, never let him see the children again, etc., etc.– all things I had never once threatened to do, wouldn’t be stupid enough to try or things I wouldn’t have feasibly been able to do. For instance, why would I destroy his means of paying child support and alimony? Plus family courts in our region would give 50% custody to Freddie Kreuger.
Meanwhile the reality is that, on D-day, I actually said “She’s your life now, have at it.” I said I had a lawyer and would retain primary custody but wouldn’t stop him from seeing the kids as long as he didn’t become psychotic or let the AP have any contact with them. But it turned out the real tiger he had by the tail was the AP, not me. The things he sputtered out over the next few chaotic days indicated the AP had made not-so-veiled threats to play the #MeToo victim card and destroy his career or even sic her creepy radtrad dad (whom she falsely claimed was “ex military” for extra scary effect) on him if he ended the affair and didn’t eventually commit to her. Consequently, shifting the blame for dumping her and framing vengefulness as “monstrous” seems to have been meant to prevent the AP from exacting the precise type of revenge he’d attributed to me.
That was interesting and solved a certain mystery about all the incredibly bizarre false accusations FW had made up about me before D-day. I’m sure the same principle applies for other chumps whose FWs fabricated bizarre charges against them. Consider that these things were true of someone, just not true of chumps. For one example, at some point during the affair he accused me of trying to get accidentally-on-purpose pregnant to trap him. Er, uh, what? I’d been begging him to get snipped for years because three kids is more than enough. At the time I thought he’d lost his mind or had a brain tumor but, in reality, accusations like this, while they weren’t true of me, were actually true of the AP. So framing me for those things was, in effect, a way to indirectly warn the AP not to do the things he strongly suspected she’d do or which she’d indirectly but obviously threatened to do.
Gee, what healthy communication these two had going. After hearing about all the terrible things I’d do to seek revenge if he left me, the AP reportedly said, “I don’t have the courage to fight for our wuv!” So FW’s oblique manipulation tactic apparently worked, at least for the interim. I think she did eventually play victim and trash him and this may have led to both of them being eventually “quiet fired” but she didn’t publicly explode immediately after he ended the affair.
That’s the other takeaway– that all the “crazy” things FWs do usually turn out to be purposeful even if heinous. This isn’t mental illness, more like criminality.
I’ve got so many parallels to your story but thankfully my kids were adults and I only had to deal with FW about them, and not the courts. I was also accused of trying to trash his business in revenge. For what reason? So I could lose my alimony? As it turned out, we hammered out an employment contract for me during mediation, but I only worked for a year and a half after that. At that time he sent me an email (as my boss then, not a spouse) saying he could not work with someone who was so angry and could ruin his business, so he offered for me to keep my job but as an independent contractor (causing me to lose my employment benefits plus have to pay double income tax – my employee income tax plus I would be responsible for the employer’s tax). I declined on the grounds that I would be doing the exact same job, with the exact same access, with the exact same FWs. So my firing triggered a clause in the Marital Settlement Agreement to increase my alimony by a lot. He gave my job to Mrs. Bendover, and here’s the kicker: in January of the next year, as the accountants were sticking forks in him to get the bookkeeping done and submitted for tax prep, I got a phone call from FW. Mrs. Bendover had not done any work, and they needed paperwork processed from April through December of the previous year, deadline January 31. I said “Well, you’d best get cracking”, hung up, and had a wonderful evening of watching tv and reading books.
“Well, you’d best get cracking”. Priceless! 😂
Hoisted on his own petard not once but several times. Applause!
He gave my job to Mrs. Bendover, and here’s the kicker: in January of the next year, as the accountants were sticking forks in him to get the bookkeeping done and submitted for tax prep, I got a phone call from FW. Mrs. Bendover had not done any work, and they needed paperwork processed from April through December of the previous year, deadline January 31. I said “Well, you’d best get cracking”, hung up, and had a wonderful evening of watching tv and reading books.
This is laugh out loud hilarious! Really and truly, thank you for sharing this!
My shitty toupee wearing ex never directly said I should “fight for him” but he sort of implied it with his behavior. During the initial shock of finding out about his trash ex I was overly emotional and that led him to believe I really wanted the marriage.
He ran with that and started showing me his ass. Stopped making any effort to spend time with me, he typically did something nice for my birthday and got me flowers. The birthday after dday he pretty much blew off didn’t bother with dinner or flowers…..that’s a conflict avoidant passive aggressive’s way of saying fuck you. He was upset thaf I refused to rug sweep and paint a phony smile on my face and figured if he showed me his ass he’d bully me into letting it go because he was soooooo important that I really wanted him.
So in a way that does imply he though I’d “fight for him”.
This was of course confirmed when I filed and he flipped to crying and begging. He didn’t want a divorce, he just thought he was so important and I wanted the marriage so badly that he could be an asshole and force me to fight for him.
He was wrong about that. I said adios to that mother fucker almost 7 years ago and never looked back. I’m doing much better then I hear he is.
FW had spun some elaborate stories about why she hadn’t taken a better job offer, transferred to a different school and how the other teachers were conspiring against her and making up lies. After D-Day, I told her I had gotten an anonymous tip about her, but didn’t take it seriously at the time because of what she had been telling me. “So you knew about what was happening and didn’t love me enough to stop me!” So she blamed me for not stopping her from making her own choices, including choosing to make up cover stories. That one spun my head around for quite a while. Many years later I think it is quite funny.
Ugh, My cheater was not my husband but my boyfriend of 13 years. I was widowed when I met him, raising 2 daughters. He cheated for years with other women, while on the outside showing his friends and family how ‘committed’ he was to me. He never expressed any hope for our future to me so after 13 years, I left him to seek out the kind of relationship I hoped for and he said to me ” You gave up too soon. You didn’t wait long enough” 13 years, y’all. 13 years.
Now, after almost 4 years since the breakup, I have met a wonderful man that my daughters adore. I am getting married this year, this FW still comes to me and says he still loves me and I gave up too soon. Move along, loser.
It’s astounding the way they think, no? This is why so many of us have a moment where we seriously think our FWs have a brain tumor, because they say things like “You didn’t wait long enough. It’s only been 13 years” and they say it will a completely straight face.
I never got “why didn’t you fight for me?” but the sentiment was there. He had an affair for years that I neither knew about, nor suspected. He eventualy confessed because he was ready to try to move forward with the AP, but it was during the pandemic lockdown so nothing happened immediately. A few more years of foot dragging, pick me dancing etc, and he was finally moving out. THEN she dumped him. By this point it was six years into the affair. Surprise! Surprise! He no longer wanted to move out, now he wanted to stay and reconcile with me. When I said no to reconciling with him after his 6 year affair, it became “YOU are throwing decades away. YOU are ending the marriage. YOU don’t care about the life and family we built.” To this day he still sees this as all on ME because I didn’t take him back in that moment.
Does this fool even listen to himself?
Yes, paradise awaits just around the corner… if only you eat this mountain of shit sandwiches in the meantime.
“You gave up too soon”–oh my gosh! 😄
Heard that, done that. I did fight for her but (thanks to CL, CN and FW’s nastiness) came to my senses and realised soon enough that there was nothing there to fight for. The AP lost interest in the big prize as soon as I turned down the role of hypothenuse. At the time, I just couldn’t wrap my head around her bizarre request that her loyal husband of 20 years together should compete with equal claim to the prize with a stranger. Talk devaluation. Fast forward 5 years, we are divorced, I am at Meh at last, she is struggling financially to stay afloat, leeching her family and her boyfriend and the XAP is in jail for domestic abuse of his current partner and her daughter (the story made the news). Thank God and this forum I retained the bare minimal sanity and agency that prevented it from being my boys locked up inside that POS’s house. Jail suits him fine. Here from the lofty heights of Meh land I can’t even remember what could have made fight for that entitled turd.
For anyone who is a psychologist or psychology adjacent, there is a great opportunity for you to describe Fuckwit Personality Disorder. FWP runs rampant through this website’s comments section. They’re all the same.
Best Thing and Hell of a Chump, you are both LOL funny.
Is that listed in the DSM5 under Cluster BS disorders? 😉
That is LOL funny. Can you write it up, per Best Things’ request? Or maybe Tracy can make it a Friday challenge.
I think the credit goes to Best Thing for introducing the idea but, because I tend to think the DSM is political and, (eew) let’s face it, frequently misogynistic, I’d love to see readers creating their own absurd “cLinIcAl” diagnostic criteria and categories. 😉
My FW was thrilled when I wouldn’t fight for him, and gave him freedom to graze in Mrs. Bendover’s pasture. Until. Until six months later when he started figuring out that this was one disordered meadow. There was one night in particular when he came home looking frightened. At that point (I was as no contact as possible while living in the same house) he sent me an email saying “I told you I was seeing another woman and YOU never asked me for marriage counseling.” My fault again. #kthxbye
Mine laid out all sorts of sociopathic conditions for his continued involvement with me. I was to hand over all access to the finances, give him “porn sex” at least daily, and sell our home (which I’d inherited from my family) so that we could buy a duplex closer to his work, and the OW would move in and take care of all the children while FW and I worked to support the family. I was not to have any contact with my dad, because my dad “judged” him.
Before he had the chance to enforce any of this, the OW issued an ultimatum and he left.
I was crushed at the time, but now realize it probably couldn’t have gone better, all things considered.
Wow, the OW really won a prize, huh?
These people are so delusional, it boggles the mind.
Wow, the delusion is strong in that one.
What’s chilling about your story is that it’s pretty much what Fotis Dulos demanded of the wife he eventually murdered, Jennifer Farber Dulos, for which Jennifer’s Law was named in Connecticut expanding the definition of domestic abuse to include coercive control.
When Jennifer discovered Fotis Dulos’ secret affair with coworker Michelle Troconis, Fotis apparently demanded that his side piece and her daughter should move into their family home and live together with their kids. Jennifer refused and filed for divorce and Fotis launched a vicious campaign of post-separation abuse that ended with Jennifer’s suspicious disappearance. He was arrested but killed himself before he could be convicted but his mistress was sentenced last year to over 14 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, obstructing the prosecution and evidence tampering.
Point being, I suspect that, if any enterprising forensic researchers ever tackled the specific issue, it would be discovered that only someone criminally empathy-impaired and dangerous would ever take that extra extreme step of demanding that a chumped partner shack up and blend families with an AP. Furthermore, I also suspect that, if you felt intimidated enough to even consider agreeing, it’s not because you’re a desperate masochist but because some part of your lizard brain picked up on the potential danger of refusing. It may only be thanks to the fact the AP in your situation didn’t acquiesce that you weren’t wholly blamed for pricking his delusional bubble. You might have dodged a bigger bullet than you know.
How convenient to ask you to turn your personal asset of an inherited house into a shared asset, and let you work to support OW when she moved in. Years ago someone mentioned that cheater wanted OW to move in and provide child care. If I recall correctly, OW was happy to move in but not to take on any responsibilities. Glad you dodged all those bullets.
Turning the inherited home into a shared asset immediately jumped out at me, too.
“…the OW would move in and take care of all the children while FW and I worked to support the family.” Christ on a bike. They truly are unbelievable!
Wow!! All thanks and praise to the OW! Can you imagine what your life would be like if you had agreed to ANY of that?
I haven’t been asked to fight (sparkle harder) for him because he has once again reverted back from admitting to having an affair to she was just a really good friend. Oh, okay.
I did recently learn that he hopes that after we spend some time apart, I will come to my senses and realize that I was incorrect in my assessment of their emotionally intense friendship. Why he would want me back a jealous, insecure, vindictive women is a riddle only he can solve.
Plus he doesn’t seem to realize that it’s kind of difficult for absence to make the heart grow fonder when he won’t leave.
My ex was like “my AP reaches for me” implying that I hadn’t done that time and time again over the 20 years. Absolute main character syndrome when I was busy working full time and keeping on top of the kids needs while he was unemployed and conducting an affair.
I love the way Robin’s FW prefaces his BS comment with the utter BS statement “I can’t lie..”. Surely his lying prowess had been well & truly demonstrated at that point?!
FW left me when he told me about the affair, so there was no pick-me-dance. Even so, he got upset when he found out that I’d contacted a real estate agent. He accused me of being excited to move to the city and meet someone new. HOW DARE I! He said I got everything.
It was SO weird because I was still reeling from news of the multiyear affair (after 35 years of a mirage–thanks, VH). I was barely vertical–crying every day, not eating, not sleeping etc…
His projection, lack of empathy, and distortion of reality was so fucked up. It seems even crazier now, 5 years later.
“He accused me of being excited to move to the city and meet someone new.” My first husband was like this too. After D-Day and separation, he surveyed my behavior relentlessly for anything I was doing, in rebuilding, that he could misconstrue as a slap in the face to himself.
I got asked a variant of this question by a malignant narcissist I had an on-and-off thing with in my 20s. I eventually got fed up and ended things. He got engaged a year later to his next victim and paraded her around, hoping we’d fight for his attention, but I only felt sorry for her and avoided them both.
Shortly after this I learned what a narcissist was and quietly ghosted him.
5 YEARS LATER, he starts trying to get back in touch. I blocked him everywhere and never responded, even as he made new emails and tried to contact me via every other platform possible — each time growing angrier and more frantic that I wouldn’t reply to him. He even admitted he was so crazed by my lack of a response that he traveled across the country to dig up dirt on me with old friends I hadn’t talked to in years.
In the last message he ever sent, he asked if I was okay and that he was deeply worried about me, because “something must be wrong.”
I showed it to a friend who said, “He acts like you’re best friends who just had coffee last week, instead of strangers who haven’t talked in years.”
Sounds like a stalker. Please be careful, document everything and consider additional steps if he doesn’t stop and things get worse.
He was definitely a stalker and it was scary for about a year, but thankfully this happened a decade ago and I haven’t heard from him since.
I got “you gave up on us” This from the man with a side gig for 15 years.
Also: “the 14 yr affair kept me in the marriage”
My theoretical response: “Because you’re not worth it.”
eX said to me, “I can’t believe you would throw away 34 years of marriage without even considering counseling or reconciliation!” He literally said, “I can’t believe you won’t fight for our marriage!”
Yes it’s all my fault that I endured decades of disdain, emotional abuse, emotional rejection, abusive sexual coercion, stonewalling, gaslighting and– unbeknownst to me— cheating, and just decide like that on D day, that I’m done! Such a lack of character and commitment on my part! Give me a break.