Why Do Abusers Isolate You?
It’s in the abuser playbook to isolate their victims. Where did you move for a FW?
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Dear Chump Lady,
During my marriage, FW and I moved 11 times in 15 years.
I’ve lived in three countries and three US states. My kids were students at five different school districts. I’m British, my ex is American, and we moved to the US about 17 years ago. While I was married, I thought we had a good life, and our moves were adventurous, but now I look back on it with a different perspective.
Typically, we would move in a zig-zag motion. For example, from Southern California to Central California and then back to Southern California. Usually, we’d stay for about a year or 18 months. I used to joke, “I’ve made friends. It’s time to move.” One time, we moved after I had enrolled at a community college and was getting stellar grades in my web design courses.
After the marriage ended, I made the usual discoveries and realized that the relationship had always been abusive. When I tell people about our many moves, they never realize that FW had deliberately isolated us from my family, our friends, and anyone who ever cared about us.
Sarah Manguso’s book Liars also features serial moving. You also interviewed an American comedian who lived in Brighton, UK, when her marriage to a FW ended.
I wondered how many chumps identify with this pattern.
After years of isolation, a shit show of a divorce, and the emotional spewing chumps are prone to, forming relationships with new people isn’t easy. Yet, people seem to think it’s something you can resolve overnight.
To me, the usual advice “reach out to family and friends” seems ludicrous. For many people who are vulnerable to relationships with these characters, it’s because they don’t have a supportive family network. For me, all of my family have passed. I have children, but at the time, they were teenagers. It’s sweater vest advice.
Thank you so much for everything you do. And thanks for Chump Nation. I’ve enjoyed your support over the years. Lord knows, I’ve needed it.
Golden Ticket Winner 2019
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Dear Golden Ticket Winner 2019,
It’s good to recognize the pattern that abusers isolate their victims.
It’s one of the many chumpy benefits we offer as partner appliances — the selflessness to put the FW first and follow their dreams and aspirations. However dubious.
I’d tell anyone in a relationship who is considering a move to ask themselves:
- Is this relationship reciprocal? Do I have evidence that they’d do the same for me?
- Am I making myself financially vulnerable by moving?
- Do I have any support system where I’m going?
- Will my partner be extra supportive of me given the absence of other supports? Or will they be engrossed elsewhere?
It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of a new beginning. (Even if it’s the 15th new beginning, IT WILL BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME!) But as you painfully learned, it’s much harder to build a new support system from the ground up.
Here are some of the benefits to abusers when they isolate their chumps:
It’s chaos.
You can’t possible be marriage police when you’re packing up all your worldly possessions and enrolling children in new schools. Moving is often a deflection from greater misdeeds. SQUIRREL! And as I’ve pointed out here before, chaos is the fourth channel of mindfuckery, after rage, self-pity, and charm. Nothing throws you off their trail like a great big mess to clean up.
It puts the focus solely on the FW.
They have a Magnificent Future and you are a bit player in their manifest destiny. Of course you’ll follow. And what top-shelf kibble it is to have followers.
They can be closer to affair partners this way.
I’ve lost count of how many chumps have thought they’re moving to get a fresh start, only to learn later they were actually moving to be nearer an affair partner. It’s also played out where they deliberately move away from an affair partner — new beginning! renewal of vows! — only to discover the affair partner moved too. OR there was a different affair partner in the new town. Point being, if the genitals want to wander, they will.
It makes it harder for you to escape.
Don’t you have some boxes to unpack? Go be a good appliance. Gosh, it’s a shame the way you need them for everything, stranded here in Buttscratch, Idaho. Hard to get a job in Buttscratch. Bad cell phone reception in Buttscratch.
Exactly. No one can hear your screams.
So, CN, Friday Challenge — did you move for a FW? How did they isolate you?
And Happy Valentine’s Day. I’ll announce the poetry winners later today.
TGIF!
I didn’t make the connection until 33 years in. The first move was to Ohio, then to another part of Ohio, then to Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia, Ohio, different part of Ohio, Michigan, Ohio, he moved to a different location in Ohio but the house didn’t sell and I became suspicious so I didn’t move. Eleven locations in 33 years – and that doesn’t include the moves from one house to another within the same area.
He was a pastor so I was encouraged not to make friends with the members of his congregation. Yeh – isolation.
Like you, FW had us moving all the time. 10 moves in 27 years. He also discouraged me from making friends with his coworkers. He convinced me that since he was the boss it would awkward.
I didn’t realize until he left, with his much younger subordinate, how isolating the moves were.
He future faked me every time that this time he would be happy and we could stay.
I did all the planning, coordinating, packing, unpacking for every move. I made sure the kids had stability and support. I was the PTA mom, fundraiser chair, and made him look great in the community. As Tracy would say, I was a great wife appliance.
He went on to be the golden boy at each opportunity. Until…his shine wore off and he had to do the daily work of maintaining a job. Then, he got bored and looked for something new. Or…I now realize…pissed off the wrong person, burned bridges with his temper and was asked to leave. Of course, it was never his fault. Everyone was against him ….blah,blah,blah.
Since I didn’t work with him, and I usually did what he wanted, I rarely saw that side of him. That side didn’t come out to me until I didn’t go along with his plans for the divorce and just take what he offered. When I hired my own lawyer and held firm, I saw the rage and self pity, when he could no longer charm me or my lawyer.
I was far from family or friends and my kids were adults, barely, so I learned to be strong.
I’m 6 years out from the discard, divorced almost 4 years. I’m rebuilding my life in my hometown, but it is still hard. All my family is now elsewhere. I’ve reconnected with a few friends, but not many.
This was me. After 33 years of marriage, Pennywise decided it was time to sell the house and move out of state, 600 miles from my job, friends, family and children.
It would be a fresh start, he said. Everything would be different, he said. I was reluctant, but wanted to save my marriage, so agreed. We bought the house he wanted.
I had some conditions- no more silent treatment, honest communication, monogamy, he would stop his hoarding behaviors (our garage had been un- enterable for years because of all the “good stuff” (crap) he had to save. I told him I needed an equal partner. He agreed to all of it.
Once we got there, he kept absolutely none of his promises. He refused to work, immediately hoarded the garage, completely emotionally shut down and wouldn’t talk to me at all. Spent hours in the bathroom with his phone.
I lasted a year. I was falling apart, lonely, terrified, isolated and just a mess. Nothing I said made the slightest difference to him. Almost two years ago, I just packed my car and left. He immediately moved another woman into my home.
I realize now what a chump I was. He had a whole agenda about that move that I knew nothing about, he just lied to me to get me to agree. I have filed for divorce and he is fighting it- dodged service as long as he could, now is not responding to my lawyer at all. I have to file a motion to compel to get this asshole in front of a judge so I can someday get a settlement. In the meantime, I’m back in my home state, struggling financially but much better mentally- I have my job, my kids, my friends and my extended family, and that has made a huge difference.
But I’m struggling with the pain of betrayal- how could he DO this?!!
Why?
Because they’re bastards with a bastard filling, bastard icing and a big rat bastard rotting cherry on top.
They don’t care about anyone- not even the replacement prop he’s thrown you away for.
Mine has not ever responded to my lawyers either- keep fighting and get what’s owed to you .
I asked my attorney that last question multiple times.
He answered, “Because they can. I’m sorry, but I think you need this divorce.”
Yes.
Yes. Because they can. A very simple, and yet very hard idea to embrace for chumps, both mentally and emotionally. Because WE wouldn’t act like that. And it’s very hard to accept that there are many people in the world who can.
Do you all remember that book, The Girl on the Train? I read that book (during my marriage) and something about it just… did something to me. I read it three times and I never read books more than once unless it’s been like 20 years. In part of the book, she is hiding from a woman because her husband told her how she humiliated herself at her party and she hates her. Eventually they do run into each other and the woman seems to genuinely like her. She was so confused about the whole thing and something about that just hooked me and would not let go.
I remember when I gave birth. I was having a really hard time recovering and he came home and told me how his coworkers and their wives were talking about how pathetic it was that I was having such a hard time. He didn’t think so, no, no, no, and he was upset that they had said that about me but he felt i had a right to know. He was military and we lived on base. I avoided everyone after that, I was so ashamed. I went through a c-section with zero pain relief, felt the entire thing, and then got to experience falling into a k-hole when they hit me with a shot of ketamine after pulling my son out of me. I had no support because I thought everybody was laughing about how pathetic I was. These were not just his coworkers, they were literally my neighbors, and the only people around I could have associated with.
He would either tell me people didn’t like me, or he would introduce me to people who clearly and obviously did not like me and then act like I was crazy for picking up on it. He bought me a ring once and it was too big. We went back to the jewelry store to get it resized and he was telling me how nice the woman who worked there was and how she had helped him design it. She was mean as shit to me and argued my ring size with me. She seemed offended that I had small fingers. It was bizarre. And when I pointed it out on the way home, he got angry because there I go being fucking crazy again! That woman did nothing wrong! Did my meds need to be adjusted? I was clearly imagining things that weren’t happening. He was right there the whole time! What was I talking about?!
It was subtle enough that I put everything on myself. I accepted that people just didn’t like me. I forgot that people used to like me. I forgot that people used to think I was funny. It didn’t become clear to me what had happened until I looked back at it once I was out of the marriage. It was subtle while it was happening though, he was good at it.
Wow, this is an absolute picture of (as you say) sly but effective abuse. I’m glad you are out of that.
Mine too was a professional abuser. I am so glad you are free and here for support. Horrible man.
What a monster to perform a smear campaign on a postpartum new mother! I’m so glad you are out!
I am watching Scamanda on Hulu and it is textbook AP and FW horror show. It’s also irrefutable proof at how APs and FWs are entitled AHs who will stop at nothing to get whatever they want. In this true story the AP and FW wage a smear campaign on the chump who just ushered her young daughter through cancer treatment. Evil. Evil. Evil. And where did the wage this smear campaign? Church of course!!
Yes, this happened to me! He waited patiently in wait, like a true predator, while we house-hunted for months, lost out on bids on houses, moved into a rental in our new country while we continued to try to find a place… then picked a fight and abandoned us within *two* months of our finally moving in. He had everything planned for at least a year and bid his time until finally he could execute it. Came back a day or two later to take away his credit card that I’d used to pay for everything for twenty years, called everyone who knew me to tell them *I’d* kicked *him* out (!), reamed out all the family and friend connections he could, then hid his whereabouts and source of income for the next four years, just circling and pecking at me via his lawyer while I and the kids struggled with new everything and temporary poverty. My parents and brother were no longer alive and he persuaded his mother and sister and aunt, who lived in our new city, to have nothing to do with any of us. He called my friends who lived here and convinced them I was a monster. We were all three of us very isolated in a new country. It was psychologically extremely challenging.
My Chumpy friends, after four years of post-separation litigation and financial abuse, I am relieved to announce I finally am legally divorced as of two days ago — and I got the house, since he didn’t pay child support for four years!
Hey all, I see your Chump names on here in the replies and think of you as friends. Thanks so much to each of you who commented 💖 from Chumpty Dumpty!
Now that I am finally free to speak without fear of losing custody of my child, I am going to pay it forward and try to prevent this happening to others. I am teaming up with a vocal advocate for IPV survivors here in Canada. Because really, you guys, this — all this gaslighting and cheating and discarding and intimidating and lying — well, it’s all just bullshit and we all — as a society, for our kids — deserve more dignity.
Congratulations! Four years was a long haul. Glad you made it through and with a house, too!
🎉 🥳 🎼 💃🏽 🎊
CONGRATULATIONS !!!!
Look at YOU so MIGHTY!!!
Yay!
So glad to hear it- now you can really start working towards healing xx
Wonderful! Congrats. 🥂
Fantastic, Chumpty Dumpty! Best wishes to you and your family.😊 You’re well rid of that awful man.
Congratulations. Here’s to new beginnings and a better future.
YAY!!! So much horror, and now the future of being free from abuse is starting for you. Congratulations. And I’m so sorry for what you went through.
Whoo-hoo and happy dance! You did it.
Congratulations on finally getting free!!! It must feel wonderful after four years of his bullshit.
Thanks Maggie T! It feels good!
In my case, he took me house shopping for years, but we never went through with the purchase. There was always something which caused him to change his mind, usually a complaint about stairs because of his bad knees.
When he left he moved into a second-floor apartment with the primary infidelity accomplice. One flight of stairs.
He then bought himself a condo. Two stories. Two flights of stairs.
He then bought another condo for them. Three stories. Three flights of stairs.
I still live in our original home, 1100 square feet, with the original 1951 kitchen. I am grateful I have a house and did not have to move, but the ghosts of a life I thought was pretty happy are everywhere. I live in a region of the country where the housing market is insane and renting an apartment costs twice my mortgage, so I am here for now.
What I realized after he left is that he never intended to buy another house with me, that he strung me, and also our daughter along, cruelly waving nicer homes in our faces and wasting my friend’s time who was our real estate agent. She could have been spending her time on serious buyers.
Then again, like every liar who has a secret sexual double life, he cruelly presented himself as someone he was not, effectively holding me, and our daughter, hostage.
I realized after he left is that he never intended to buy another house with me, that he strung me, and also our daughter along, cruelly waving nicer homes in our faces and wasting my friend’s time who was our real estate agent.
My ex did this too, I’ve learned it’s called “future faking.” For years I searched real estate listings and we spent a lot of time touring houses, having tween pick out a bedroom, talking to potential neighbors and wasting huge amounts of time for me, tween and realtors. When we found something we liked, he could almost always a fault. Once it was a tiny patch of roof that could be a problem with snow. The few times we found the perfect house, suddenly he was concerned about his job stability or a potential transfer. Not sure why he did this so often. I suspect he enjoyed our disappointment when we “couldn’t” get houses tween and I wanted.
What my ex did has notes of a similar cruelty, albeit on a smaller scale.
He was always very reluctant to watch a movie, whether at home or in a theater. Shortly after d-day when he moved in with schmoopie yet we continued to share the same NYTimes account, I noticed that he immediately subscribed to the site’s “Watching” newsletter, which provides readers with movie/tv recommendations.
He knew I would notice this. Cruelty was the point.
One of a thousand minor cuts.
Cuts are cuts..you bleed out anyway you look at it
.wow!!!
As for isolating me from family and friends?
I have sometimes wondered if I was guilty of doing that to him, but on reflection I don’t think so.
His friends were the people I brought to the party. He never seemed to be able to make any of his own. He has always had lots of superficial acquaintances, but any deeper relationships were friends of mine. This only became clear after he left. There were some among them that told me they never really liked him, which surprised me, and I also discovered some Switzerlands who I have since stayed away from.
His active alcoholic family was a huge problem for me. I’ve been in recovery for almost forty years, so that was to be expected. I had little to do with them but did not interfere with him seeing them. The exception to that was our daughter. Since birth, I never allowed her to be left in their care. She has never been to their house. We met at the park for play dates or they came to our house, a boundary I am glad I kept. After he left, if she saw his parents it was at his place. It was based on if she wanted to see them and it was respected. It actually surprised me that after he left he never took our daughter to his parents’ house or left her in their care.
He continued to deny to us that he was involved with the OW. We later learned he was pretending to live solo at the two-story condo, while secretly his actual primary residence was the three-story condo with the OW, so my daughter has never met her, for which I am grateful.
LYING IS THE NATIVE LANGUAGE OF THE ENEMY.
Yep- alcoholic in laws and family here too- good times.
All his mates thought there was something wrong with anyone who didn’t drink .
He wasn’t interested in my friends and family and made that very clear- even though he was friends with my sister before I met him- he did like to use my son as a prop if it could make him look like a good guy though.
“Since birth, I never allowed her to be left in their care. She has never been to their house. We met at the park for play dates or they came to our house, a boundary I am glad I kept.”
The mama bear is strong in you! ❤️ 💪
Here I am! Right here! I’m the poster girl.
Starting in 1992, only three years after I’d graduated law school and started working, he got a new job so I had to move from NYC to Los Angeles with him.
Two years later had to leave because he’d been hired for a new job in … wait for it … India! Where I did not have working papers, so no career there for me.
Nine months into that experiment, his job relocated us to London, I found a job, and 15 months later he lost his job and we were sent back to Los Angeles.
Shortly after that, he lost another job, we had to rent out the house and move to an apartment in a new area of the city.
But wait, there’s more! He got hired for a job in Abu Dhabi, UAE. I quit my job and was about to join him when he got diagnosed with HIV (fun conversation that was) and since the UAE wouldn’t give him a residence visa due to his health, he lost that job too.
We ended up in Redondo Beach, Encinitas, Cardiff, Del Mar, and eventually wound our way back to Los Angeles.
Surprisingly, I was not able to build a career as a lawyer under these particular circumstances.
Now? I’m doing ok, but I don’t have to quit my job and move every 18 months. He’s still drifting from job to job. My credit rating is up in the stratosphere. His? not so much.
This makes me so angry on your behalf. All that work to graduate law school of all things, and then your career path took such a hit because of his fuckwittery! (Not to mention possibly exposing you to HIV. But hey..don’t be “bitter” or anything)
This is the kind of stuff that people that haven’t been betrayed don’t GET. The cheats don’t “just” get physical with someone else. They do all these other things that impact the chump sometimes for life.
And of course the answer for you IS to focus on your new life, and be happy to be able to move forward and make the best of everything. But that doesn’t change that they do things that set us on paths that aren’t ideal for us, and it often matters for a long time. A good example is when a Chump was the stay at home parent. Hopefully that was a choice they made, and they are glad for that time they had with their kids. So it’s not all bad. But the truth remains that they were home, and the FW was able to climb the career ladder. Now, since FW decided to cheat, the Chump is about to re-enter the workforce from the bottom rung, while the FW is at the top of their game. And of course, the old standby that we all have been dealt- if we were’t with the FW, we may have been out there meeting a kind and loyal person instead.
I’m so glad you got out of that chronic maelstrom!
My FW and I met when we both lived in LA. He was rude and dismissive to my friends, but I still went out with them. Then, he announced that we were moving to Orange County – about an hour and a half from where my friends and work were. And I had “two weeks” to find us a place to live. We weren’t even married yet! I wasn’t asked; I was told. And I complied. What followed was 15 years of me, a dyed in the wool liberal, living in Reagan country. Isolation achieved. I had no friends. Stopped working in LA eventually, because it was too far away. Had no one to see a movie with or even grab a cup of coffee with. And his AP conveniently lived a few blocks away.
We didn’t move while married, but he was an isolator. He constantly questioned anything I did in the evening and on the weekend, making sure that others were there and that it was preferably in a public place. He’d tell me over and over that women who went out might “stray” and that my place was with him at home. I had to promise to be home at a particular time, and if I were even 15 minutes late, he’d have a fit.
About a year after he left, he decided that we needed to start over in a new place. Mind you, communications had broken down then, and I had reasons to believe he was “straying” himself. That thought came from his older sibling, who I guessed wasn’t getting much of the real story. I could choose anywhere, and he’d buy me the house of my dreams. We’d buy new furniture and the rest. Knowing the family finances, I wondered where that money was going to come from.
Then there was the angry interaction where he said he’d take away my cell phone and computer to have me all to himself. That scared me. He also said that I’d have to cut off our college kids forever, saying they were a distraction and that they’d “figure out life themselves.” Another time, he said they should both quit college so we could be “all together.” When I objected, he said they could go to college near his residence (a resort area with a no-name college). They were both upperclassmen in specialized top-twenty programs. The same sibling who had made the other suggestion had told him that the kids would come around if I came around and that they would be more than willing to quit college for their father.
Just no. I couldn’t agree to any of that. The kids wanted to finish college where they were. So we divorced in a wild mess that eventually settled and closed out. By the end, I truly couldn’t stand anything about him. My ex didn’t have my best interests at heart.
He didn’t have your kids’ best interest at heart, either!
No, he didn’t care anything about them.
It was interesting that in communications with them and with me about them, he seemed to view them as young children, not the young adults they were. That shocked me until I realized that he was viewing them that way because he wanted them to be young children so he could control them again. But they had grown up!
At one point, he even suggested that I stop feeding them to make them communicate with him. By then, they were mainly at college or work all day, with their own transportation and pocket money, which was bizarre. He said that his parents used to sometimes punish him by not letting him eat. As a young man? Yes, he insisted. If that was true, his family was even more messed up than I thought, but who knows?
Thankfully, they both graduated with honors during the pandemic and even snagged solid jobs when there was little hiring.
Same. He continues to act as though the kids are little, even though they are 18 and 21 now.
I have a local friend who had the same issue, so it’s definitely a thing. At that age (and very much at the age of mine, both mid-twenties), they are more and more self-directed, as they should be.
One tactic my ex used to try to get our kids to engage was to use memories from their childhoods as a connection point, which I think was part of the “you are a child” game. Nope. It didn’t work.
Part of it was that he never acknowledged the effects of abandoning us, ignoring us, and then dragging us through the mud financially and legally. Why would anyone want to be close to someone who had done that? I kept my trap shut when it came to their relationship with their father, anyway. As young adults, it was their call.
Long time reader here, but don’t post much. Anyway, this one really opened my eyes. I never thought of moving again and again and again as abuse until now. I had a great career and out-earned him prior to kids. Afterward, I worked 30 hours/week and he became the primary breadwinner. I had to stay behind each time to prep and sell the house, take care of kids’ school transfers, and basically everything move-related.
We moved every 3-5 years for his career. It was always “if we don’t, then I won’t have a job.” Which I now recognize as ludicrous. He never wrote a cover letter or even did a resume – I always did it. Super chumpy!
Funny note – during the divorce, he helped his elderly mother move. He then complained to me about how hard it was to move – hah!
I would suspect that demanding you stay behind to do all that was to provide him with free reign to cheat.
I’ve written about this before so I’ll try to be brief. I was working in Switzerland when I met FW (posted overseas as a US marine). We ended up getting married and even though I didn’t want to give up my good job, I felt I had to give the US a try for his sake. I managed to get a job at the World Bank in D.C. but he couldn’t get anything except crap jobs. So then he wanted to move to PGH to be near his family. I didn’t want to go but yet again we moved so that he could get another crap job and I set myself up working from home to look after our baby. March 1989 I got a call from my employer in Switzerland and was offered my job back so we jumped at the chance as he hated his crap job. About 10 years in we both had decent jobs and were living in the French alps (just across the border from Geneva) when he decided we should “move to Montana and build a log cabin”! I asked him why we couldn’t build a frickin’ log cabin right here in the alps where we both had good jobs – he couldn’t answer that of course. So I told him to go ahead and move to Montana, get the fantastic job and me and the kids would follow later. Of course it was never mentioned again because it was always me that had to “get the job”! As for here, he was such a dick when he drank (and even when he didn’t drink) that people stopped inviting us anywhere. My neighbour actually apologized to me for not inviting us to her husband’s 50th birthday party because she knew my FW would drink and ruin the evening. So yes he isolated me but luckily I had great friends at work who held my head above water. He left France 10 years ago and the kids and I haven’t looked back. I think maybe you don’t realize you’re being isolated to begin with – it’s more of a dripping tap syndrome! Hang in there chumps, you’ll get your life back once you dump a FW!
And I guess that was about as brief as I could be. Sorry about that!
Yup, serial moving chump here. We had moved 7 times by the time my oldest was 12.
Yes, the focus was always on the FW: shiny new important job! What it always meant was that I’d be alone to clean the house before showings, manage the kids for 6-8 weeks, all alone while he was unfettered with wife and kids. He could drink and (now I know) use prostitutes, or hook ups, as much as he wanted while pretending that he missed us.
Yes, I was isolated and it got more difficult to make new friends each time. I used to think it was because the kids were older and other women my age had become very busy. But now I know it was because my capacity for friendship was gone- my real life was miserable and I was only pretending to be happy, I lost my self confidence. I knew something was way off in my marriage. It was almost like I and everyone who met me could smell a BAD stink from the secret basement! I just didn’t know that the basement was there.
Now (divorced for 4 years) I wonder if the constant job changes for XH were also a way for him to get ahead of him getting fired. He was “let go” several times, including the last, and I’ve always suspected that it was for cause but they took a quiet way out to protect the firm. Could have been illegal personal behavior during free time or company time on business trips, financial mismanagement, illegal things on his laptop, or just plain laziness leading to sub par performance.
We moved far from my family, but this wasn’t by design on his part. He was in the military. It did, however, have the effect of isolating me, which I think worked to his advantage.
He always seemed to want me around, which I interpreted as his neediness and love for me. 🤦🏻♀️ There were times when he couldn’t seem to bear my going to visit my family across country. Once he even cried when I was about to go to a book club meeting at a neighbor’s house. I stayed home.
During his affair–that I was blind to, of course–he suddenly encouraged me to go out with friends, to travel with my daughter to celebrate her thesis defense, to take a quick trip with a couple girlfriends. I remember feeling happy that he’d somehow…evolved!
Wrong. My being away merely allowed him unfettered access to the AP.
Damn him.
“Once he even cried when I was about to go to a book club meeting at a neighbor’s house.”
🙄 Loooooooser.
This actually fits in with what HOAC talks about; masked dependency. The cheating is actually a way to dilute their dependency on the primary partner. When they leave it’s to cut the chord, only to become dependent on the new partner of course.
I had a dependent FW too. Not to the degree that he’d be upset if I went out, but like you, I thought it was because he loved me so much. Boy, were we misled. They get dependent on partners because they are emotional infants, unable to self soothe or handle their emotions.
So interesting! Thanks for this.
My own therapist would tell me that he had trouble regulating his own emotions, so he relied on me for that until he found my replacement.
By the way, I think that one of the reasons I catered to him for so many years was that his own two brothers had committed suicide, and I worried that he, too, might do the same. He was well aware of my concern and, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that he used it to his advantage.
Can’t believe I thought it was love. 🤦🏻♀️
I moved countries and if I hadn’t made sure I squirrelled money away, I never would have been able to fly back and visit as often as I did.
Not once did Dickhead McCluggage ever say that he could see I missed my family so why didn’t we live there for a few years?
Why not?
Because I was there for HIS convenience- his life and his way- it didn’t matter what I wanted.
If I came back for Christmas, 9/10 it was alone – he never made an effort to come along .
He ended up abandoning me in my country of birth when I was here for a short contract- he came over to visit, behaved VERY strangely, went home and ceased all communication- that was 2 years ago.
I’ve been in court ever since as the horror of the real him has slowly revealed itself to me.
After 25 years of marriage, living in the Bay Area, he decided that his new “business” required him to be in Reno, and that we should retire there. This was when I was within a year or two of retiring. He insisted on selling our beautiful home in San Francisco and I moved to Reno during the pandemic. He ran through an incredible amount of money, all earned by me, unsuccessfully trying to get that business off the ground while launching a very expensive affair. Meantime, I was trying to keep my marriage together and my career afloat long enough to retire, while completely isolated from family and friends. Of course he did the usual once we were there – asked for marriage counseling, claimed he needed time by himself to “heal”, feathered his nest as much as possible, spent like crazy on the side piece, and then once I retired, announced he wanted a divorce.
Not only are you left with the financial and emotional devastation of what they’ve done, there’s also the extra horror of realizing that you were absolutely played for a fool, and your chumpy trusting self made it easy for them
Yes! I thought we were a team, and it turns out he thought I was a sucker.
Yes… because excuse us for being honest and genuine people who mean what we say and fully commit to our partners.
Horrible cardboard people the lot of them.
In my case the moving was for my job. I’m a research physicist, so it’s pretty standard for our field. Grad school, 1 or 2 postdocs, then hopefully a permanent position by your 30s. We discussed at length every time and were always on the same page, at least supposedly. My isolation happened by trying to protect her. I would feel so guilty doing anything social without her, especially once we had kids, so I just stopped. And she made sure I knew what a hardship it was on those rare times I did try to do something for myself. You can’t make friends when you only see people in the office.
Meanwhile I encouraged her to get out and join groups and make friends. She “couldn’t work” because someone had to be home with the kids, but every day when I got home I found her glued to her phone. And then she went out 3 or 4 evenings a week, but still made a big deal whenever I tried to even get some exercise. One of the weirdest things about the divorce is how little the day-to-day has changed. Get up, go to work, get home and immediately start making dinner, clean up, put the kids to bed, repeat. No time or energy to even contemplate any kind of social life, much less developing meaningful friendships.
“They’re not your friends, they’re mine. They don’t like you; they only tolerate you for my sake.”
He later said he said that to shut me up. (It worked.) But it also made me resolute in never going again to any of his friends’ gatherings or group outings. He whined, pouted, raged… But I was immovable: why would I go anywhere where I was only “tolerated”?
He also told me to drop it, and I never have.
Abusers definitely isolate you by moving you away from your friends and family, your support system, your job. But there are other ways to isolate you as well.
My ex-husband described himself as an “extroverted introvert,” which basically meant that we would hang out at home unless there was someplace HE wanted to be. If I was interested in going to an event, a party, an after-work drink with coworkers, he was absolutely against it. When we made a cross-country move to benefit him, I had a lot of difficulty making friends among our coworkers. In fact, in the 14 years we worked at that hospital, I was unsuccessful in making *any* friends. My mother had always told me that people weren’t going to like me. I thought it was that, and the difference in culture between the east coast and the west. Years later, some of those coworkers told me that the Cheating Abusive Douche (CAD) had been telling everyone that I was crazy, that I couldn’t be trusted, that I didn’t lift a finger at home, and all sorts of other nasty things that weren’t true.
Even before the move, he refused to ever hang out with my friends, because he found them boring. We hung out with his friends if at all — friends that I didn’t enjoy because I don’t like the way it feels to be drunk or high. And I didn’t trust his friends because of the glee with which they described “getting back at” or “screwing over” other people, or stealing from their employers, etc. THAT was a red flag that I missed because I wasn’t thinking with the Big Head. If all of their friends are doing something, they are most likely doing it too.
And then I was in an accident and injured so severely I couldn’t walk for about six months. He made a huge deal of how he had to take care of me, waiting on me hand and foot, and how ungrateful I was. In truth, he left me at home alone for 20 hours at a time, and although he drove me to doctor’s appointments — because I was treated at the hospital where we worked and NOT driving me would have tarnished his shiny public image — most of the time I had to navigate our three story townhouse with a walker and fend for myself. And I was too embarrassed to tell anyone how badly he was treating me. My friends were all thousands of miles away.
I’m just happy to be out of there alive, divorced now and living as far from him as I could get without leaving the US.
“And then I was in an accident and injured so severely I couldn’t walk for about six months. He made a huge deal of how he had to take care of me, waiting on me hand and foot, and how ungrateful I was. In truth, he left me at home alone for 20 hours at a time, and although he drove me to doctor’s appointments — because I was treated at the hospital where we worked and NOT driving me would have tarnished his shiny public image — most of the time I had to navigate our three story townhouse with a walker and fend for myself.”
Bastard! Scum of the earth! 🤬
Not sure if anyone had this happen, but ex actually moved me back closer to family before things fell apart. There were a couple things that he did that almost seemed like a preemptive apology, with whatever decency or empathy he could muster. Prior to that, we did use his job as a way to relocate and get to an area not too far away from where we met that was much more affordable. Neither of us were closer to family at that point. First move out of the big city we were newly married and I had no job despite trying to get myself set up prior to our moving. I had a panic attack the day we moved in. Foreshadow of things to come. Never will I give up my financial independence for another person again.
Holy Hindsight, Batman. We had 15 addresses in 18 years together (13 married). The next job was always going to be the big one. So I was an expat wife, across Europe, Asia and the US – aka a “trailing spouse”. Trail of effing tears, more like. As I gradually started expressing I’d eventually like to move home so the kids could get to know their heritage and be nearer family, my kibble sell-by dates began whizzing by.
My FW whined for a move that made no sense. Our house was almost paid off and being mortgage free would allow us to do things he had said he wanted. He had lame excuses for the move, such as his commute to work (which was all of 40 pleasant minutes in mostly light traffic) and that he wanted to use public transportation, as we lived in a small bedroom community outside the city with only one bus back and forth per day which left at sixty thirty in the morning.
I always tried to be fair to him, so I accepted these excuses as legit reasons, though I felt uneasy about it, had a bad feeling. This is another example of the foolishness of not listening to your gut.
So we had to buy a new house in the city, which is a much more expensive market, which meant taking on a new mortgage. He promised to have our old house renovated and ready to sell in six months. He agreed that since he wanted the move, that was his responsibility.
You can probably guess some of the rest. He almost never took public transportation. Instead, he carpooled with a friend who I found out (after Dday) had a criminal record. Naturally, the guy was a FW as well and an alcoholic. FW looked upon him as a mentor and the carpooling gave him the handy dandy excuse to go drinking with that guy after work.
He was cheating before we had even moved into the new place. The real motive for the move was to make it easier for him to meet women plus to go to bars with buddies and get blitzed, saying he was “working late.” He met somebody at work before we had made the move and commenced a long term affair. So much “working late.”
The renovation of the former home did not take the six months he committed to, it took two years, and even then it was only done at all because I did so much of the work myself, something he had said he would spare me from, as I have a disabled child I am the caregiver for. (I say “I have” instead of “we have” for reasons any chump knows all too well.) FW would say he was going to work on the house but was really going to be with OW. Our contractor even wondered why nothing FW had told him he was going to be doing was getting done.
So I busted my hump while he partied.
That is my FW forcing a move story. It wasn’t to isolate me, it was to give himself better opportunities to betray me.
Also, regarding FWs moving a lot, I think some of that is due to their belief that there is a geographical solution for psychological problems. What I mean by that is that they often genuinely think that the hole in their soul can be filled by novelty, and a new place to live provides that. So do new partners. It doesn’t relieve the dreadful empty feeling for long, which is why they move so often and change partners so often. You will hear them say things like; “This will be a fresh start.” and; “The change will do us good.” I think they do believe it will make them happy, when in reality, nothing ever will- not an endless pussy/dick buffet, not a new house or new job ever year, not all the kibbles in the world.
My ex also thought a fresh start would fix things after he blew up the marriage; thankfully, that made zero sense to me because he’d be there.
My therapist pointed out that fresh starts only work if you have worked through most of the issues leading to that before you get there. Otherwise, you take all of your problems to the new place where they can explode again on you.
My #1x moved me from my network of friends and to another state. I had 2 friends when he left me 2 years later. I was warned by my hospital chaplain that the way I was already being mistreated that I SHOULD NOT GO. I cried and said I had to know for sure. Yep, left me alone with 2 small kids. I was warned. Let this be a lesson.
PS affair partner was in New state, yes she was
I moved to the middle of very-isolated-nowhere. And put my whole chumpy heart and soul and savings into building a home for us, with space for his special new business and hobbies. I also worked for him. He didnt like me going to see my friends or family, with the exception of one rich family member. He didnt like me speaking to them on the phone. He didnt like me going anywhere. One of the saddest things he did was begin to pretend to wistfully yearn for a completely different sort of property, in a totally different location at completely the other end of the country. He knew I was trying so hard to create a home for us, in the area he said he wanted to be in, near his friends and family. Picking out this other, different house was just a way of controlling my happiness. He wanted to prevent me from ‘bonding’ with our new house, prevent me from putting down roots and to keep me destabilised. I was unable to settle, relax and feel at home and enjoy our new house. I also think he wanted to feast on the delicious kibbles of watching me try to please him by trying to fulfill his ever changing dreams, as well as control me by destabilising me. I think he may also have got a kick out of hurting me. Im so lucky to be free. God help his mistress/wife.
Years ago, FW tricked me, the mother of a then-newborn, 6 & 8 year olds, plus my retired parents, into a cross country move from the Pacific Northwest to the Deep South, so he could secretly be with his former married male coworker – who had also moved his wife and daughters to New State. I have never met a more flawless liar than my FWex. Freakishly high functioning. I was happy.
I found out about 6 weeks into the move, when the HR lady at their new job was trying to bring my family some welcome casseroles and iced tea. She phoned me to say she was right outside our temporary apartment door – couldn’t I see her? I confirmed our apartment number, then about 20 long minutes later she came to my door – looking as if she had seen a ghost. She was extremely flustered. A few minutes after she left she butt-dailed me while trying to call her husband. I overheard her trying to tell “him” that my husband evidently had a secret apartment and was a cheater. She was flabbergasted and saying he didn’t seem like the type! I was like “Amen, sister, I also had no idea and I just moved here for him!” 🤣 and she apologized and sheepishly got off the phone.
I filed for divorce and had him served very quickly in our Old State, and he filed in the New State, but wouldn’t you know it his lawyer who had been practicing for over 45 years at the time, and was a SuperLawyer just couldn’t seem to have me served with the lawsuit. Ha ha – oh he HATED my ex, and for years after would shit talk him every time he ran into my former lawyer.
FW fought me tooth and nail, paying no temporary support, demonizing me to anyone and everyone, falsely accusing me of having post-partum depression. He “dated” a bunch of men and women until he found a wealthy, naive, older never married/no kids former debutante who could raise our kids on his time. She found him a new lawyer about a year into our divorce who helped get our case settled quickly.
All was well for about a year, then he lied about getting fired from his job (when we subpoenaed his employment file it showed he “resigned”), and moved 1 state away for a year, right after suing me for relocation. Our judge had legal troubles of her own for not running her docket in a timely manner, and had been removed from the bench, then reinstated. So she was eager to order me and the kids to move to Yet Another State for That Fuckwit – I was pretty devastated. And my mom refused to testify on my kids’ behalf and was a hugely unsupportive jackass. I cut her out of our lives shortly after.
Been here in State 3 for about 5 years – had to move in the first months of the pandemic which was stressful. We’re thriving. FW had a phase a few years ago when he talked a big game to our eldest about moving to Europe when son graduates from high school. 🙄 But fingers crossed I have not been sued yet for More Relocation. Heaven help me.
I trusted he sucked early on D-Day, but more proof of it continues to find me. Turns out FW sneakily prevented his marriage license from his Covid-rescheduled 2021 backyard wedding from being legally filed. So he’ll commingle all of his girlfriend/“wife”’s future inheritance and she’ll have no legal recourse. A true con man! Every day, I’m so glad I’m not married to IT 🤡🎈anymore.
One by one, my ex offended three of my close female friends to the point that two of them said it was him or them. None of them knew the others. In retrospect, I think it was his way of isolating me. I’ve since rekindled the friendship with one. The other two died.
Also, whenever tween had the slightest sniffle, he discouraged tween and I from going to Sunday services, telling me it would be selfish to put others at risk. Again, deliberate, because he went alone.
We didn’t move but he pushed for it a lot. He would suggest we move to the opposite coast of the US. Away from work, friends, family. There was absolutely zero reason to do this. Not even as a fresh start because this push started BEFORE I knew about the affair.
It was JUST today that it occured to me, that our current state is over 2000 miles from the AP. The proposed relocation would have us 1000 miles from her. That is still a pretty long distance, but it was closer. Maybe she was willing to move to that other coast and less interested in our home state? In any case, AP aside, encouragig me to move so far away when HE knew that he wasn’t invested in the marriage and I didn’t know? Gross.
Another related incident. Around the time the affair started, but pre DDay? He started talking about our jobs and how they weren’t very fulfilling. We both have decent office jobs. We could be doing so much worse, but his point is valid in that neither of us was passionate about what we do. That said, that bothered him a lot, and didn’t really bother me. Would I like to be doing something where I feel like I am making a huge difference in the world or just love what I do all day? Sure! But I have a reliable job, making decent-ish pay, with good benefits. I’m comfortable there. And I look for fulfillment in my relationships with my kids, family and friends.
He never could see it that way. He acted like his very soul was being stragled with his easy as pie, < 40 hr per week, very high paying job.
And he started encouraging ME to go find something more fun. Kept pointing out that his job was high paying enough that if I wanted to take a huge pay cut, I could and his salary would cover the difference.
The thing is, he started encouraging this when his affair was full blown. I didn’t know yet, but he did. I think about this a lot. I think he wanted me less financially well off so that he would have the upper hand when he DID tell me about the affair.
See, he had a pretty outlandish plan. He did not want to be the asshole that left his wife and kid for a younger model. Most people would say, then don’t BE that person. But my cake-loving FW wasn’t going to settle for that. He thought that if he could bully me into being cool with it all, he could have everything.
He wanted us to stay legally married, but revert to just platonic best friends. He wanted his long distance AP to move here, into a place very nearby. Then we could all live amicably ever after. Go to family events as a 5-some with our 2 kids. Have family dinners, vacations and holidays together. He wouldn’t lose half of anything as we would stay legally married.
It wasn’t exactly an open marriage he was suggesting because we would no longer be romantically linked and he wouldn’t be ok with ME dating.
I swear it was just this absolute dessperate idea of how he could keep his life from imploding, while still getting to be with his schmoopie. It’s utterly crazy.
And not to be melodramatic, but I often see this as not being far off from the people that have affairs and then murder their whole family because they can’t see how else to get out of the mess they caused. Scott Peterson and Chris Watts come to mind.
My husband told me he wanted to erase me. He wanted me to not exist because I knew the truth of what he did to me and the children and he couldn’t have anyone know. That’s why he had to isolate me and discredit me, because I knew the truth and I was a witness.
That is truly scary.
Fascinating topic, because even if they cannot successfully geographically isolate you, they’ll use other methods. Unbeknownst to me FW had engaged in a program of identity erasure against me from the get go – absorbing and repackaging my values, behaviours, hobbies etc as his own – and by the end when he really needed it because he had his back up supply secured almost pretended I didn’t exist. One bizarre story in the death throes was pretending he had always done a particular exercise program that I had done for 2 decades, and got everyone involved in during lockdown. Before D Day I told him I was going to a pilates place as id hurt my back and couldn’t do this program anymore. He stared at me blankly and said “do you go to the gym”. I thought he was switched off, maybe mad, but I noticed recently his AP was in an online group for this exact same exercise program which is a one in a million chance she found out about it herself. There were other examples of identity theft like the fake socialist stuff ive banged on about here before but that was just one that sprung to mind. Interestingly when I met his more patently disturbed mother and sister at the start they pretended I didn’t exist by turning their backs, and carrying on as if i wasnt there, and the sister’s son has the same disturbance of pretending people aren’t there. I just thought they were wackos but it is also psychological isolation so you start doubting your very existence. Very sick and disturbing stuff and once again, if you see a hint of it in your relationship and there’s any chance of escape, run.
P.s. yes i did experience geographical isolation, living on his family farm for 10 years, but FW wanted us to move from there at one stage to literally the arse end of nowhere miles from anywhere apparently to satisfy my insatiable greed to “live in a nice house”. To that I said no thanks.
One other example of erasure (which happened on and off over the years where FW didnt like me talking about my job) was FW getting stroppy like a little kid and saying “you need to stop talking about that” when I mentioned having observed a very good lawyer, a female friend of his brother’s, in court a couple of times. I said she had very good advocacy skills or something benign, nothing to do with FW. I thought until recently he was just jealous as he had to be the most superior and brilliant lawyer of all time, or misogynistic because females should be at the sink, but recently I’ve recognised it was probably mostly because it reminded him I existed outside of his control, had a separate life, etc. The FWs certainly give us some interesting content to process for a few years or decades
As any milspouse chump will tell you, military FWs have a leg up on many FWs in this area. They have their military careers to blame, of course. Moves every 2 to 3 years are the norm and if you complain, well, how dare you not support your hero spouse in uniform! They keep you financially under their thumbs this way, also. And with the military, you make friends and then the friends get moved, too.
I had gotten into a federal position as a civilian member of the military work force. I had done so in the hope my career could move with FW’s. FW assured me in 2013 that our move was our last as he would retire and we would stay in that last place. I started networking in the new area and working on getting a new federal position where we were. I had barely gotten started when FW announced we would be moving in less than a year. Why? Because he hadn’t bothered to contact his detailer to express a preference to stay and someone else beat him to it. So we were moved to a town which did not have my agency there in the days before WFH was a thing. I was forced to resign and got pregnant on the heels of that. And after moving with him following his career, carrying his child that he said he wanted, I found him cheating on me while I was 7 months pregnant. How convenient.
I had no friends or family within 1,000 miles of me. I was stuck. All I could do was marriage police and pray. His treatment of me became worse and worse because how dare I uphold boundaries. And then came the ultimate dick move; he wanted me to move once again to be closer to his affair partner and then after moving to the new place with our child, I should “find (my) own place to live.” Huh? What? Imagine someone telling you to move 4 hours away so they can dump you in a new and expensive place
Oh yes they do it and always to serve themselves. FWs are horrible people.
Thank you so much for this blog post—I can completely relate.
In 29 years together, 24 of them married, we moved six times—across Europe, to the U.S., and back. Every time, it was for his “amazing new job,” a fresh opportunity, and, of course, the promise of more time for the family. Always a promise. Everything would be better if we just moved.
But somehow, the same problems followed. The employees were always incompetent, the boss was unbearable, or something else got in the way of his success, making it “impossible” for him to stay. He was under extreme stress—I had to acknowledge that, right? I had to feel his pain, right? No?
Meanwhile, our kids switched schools and education systems as often as some people change shirts. Every two years, I found myself knee-deep in moving boxes, uprooting our lives yet again. But during our second-to-last move, something different happened—a female colleague was relocating from Europe to the U.S. at the same time.
What I didn’t know then was that their American employer had far less tolerance for workplace affairs than the ones in Europe. A few months later, unbeknownst to me, his affair was exposed. And we relocated back to Europe. For a better job opportunity, he told me at the time.
It was a blatant lie. He was fired, as I found out much, much later. He just happened to land a new job right away and spun it as a ‘career boost.’
I remained in the dark until the next move—until the next young colleague, whom he, as her boss, was also having an affair with. That’s when the truth fully came to light.
One messy divorce later, he’s now happily married to the younger woman. They even work together, in the same company, on the same floor. Europe—enough said.
Oh, and actually, make that two divorces. The other woman had also been married—to the head of her department. For her, at least, marriage number three (in her late 30s!) seems to have worked out—she managed to lock down the CEO.
And me? I’m finally free of that cheating waste of space and healing from decades of abuse.
Thanks to Chump Lady and Chump Nation I am in a much better place today.
This was so helpful to read, thank you. During my 27 year “marriage”, we moved California to Washington to Nevada to Germany (then almost to the UK) to the Netherlands (then almost to W. Virginia) and back to California where I FINALLY divorced him. He
tried FOR YEARS to convince meto pressured me FOR YEARS to move to Europe, despite my strong desire not to. Threatened me that if I didn’t, he “would find someone else who would”. So of course, wanting to save the “marriage”, like a fool, I agreed. The lifestyle there and his constant “business travel” made it soooooo much easier for him to cheat. (he was a serial cheater who cheated on me the ENTIRE marriage, through pregnancies, miscarriage, cancer, etc.)Damn, how I wish I could have known and recognized then what I know now!!! But sadly I fell into the reconciliation-industry trap, and stayed for WAY too long. It is so easy to see it all in 20/20 hindsight now, but when I was in it, I just couldn’t see it.
I wanted to move to a family friendly area when we started having kids. Fuckwit was beside himself! Being around other families meant neighbourhood bbqs, car pooling and well, being neighbourly. Fuckwit made it seem like he would wither & die if he had to live there. So instead we moved to an area with secluded houses and everyone over 50. My kids were the only ones in the neighbourhood. But at least FW never had to say hello to anyone. Selfish prick!
My exFW lived in the central region of our home state and I lived in the northern. The aren’t too far from eachother but felt like worlds away once the move was complete. He knew financially I was struggling and so was my family. He knew that part of my struggles were due to family, and he used that to his advantage. I mistakenly was transparent with him about my vulnerabilities. He advised I move closer to him (where it’s cheaper) or in with him to save money. To me, this was an indication that he wanted me to be closer to him and at that time I’d do anything for that opportunity. I was already swept up in him, less than a year in. 1 month after moving, signs began to show but I didn’t know what to make of them. 3 months after moving was my (first) DDAY. Which led to many after that. By this time, “my” car was in his name, my phone was on his plan, and I had moved away from my family for what I thought was more stability. Because I had dismissed my family so much, I felt there was no turning back from the relationship so I did what I thought I could do to make it work. He would tell me things like “it’s funny how xyz family member has xyz opinion but im the only one who truly loves you and would do xyz for you”. And I believed him. But DDay after DDay followed. When I DID interact with family and loved ones, they say they didn’t recognize me at all. Not knowing I was pick-me dancing for 9 long painful months.
It was a combination of the isolation and leaving myself financially vulnerable. The latter caused me to stay longer than I wanted to. He knew I was indecisive and agreeable. It’s been almost a year (March) since I wrote in to CL and finally broke things off. Thankfully through all the financial abuse, I learned from his rigidness and began accumulating a savings of my own. I was able to replace the car, move into another space, and begin putting back together the pieces of my broken family relationships. It wasn’t easy, I’m still getting back on my feet but anything is better than being imprisoned by a FW. Now engaged to OW. But I suppose this is her problem now.