Why Do Cheaters Future Fake?
What do you do when cheaters future fake? This time it’s going to be different. Just give them one more chance. Do they mean it?
***
Hi Chump Lady,
Here’s my submission for the Universal Bullshit Translator.
This is a letter my ex scrawled to me on a notepad before leaving for work.
I found it on the kitchen counter when I was packing up all my stuff.
I don’t want this to end. Please give me another chance. I know I would never do this again and can prove it to you over our lifetime. I know I’m to blame, and will bear this for a long time. I want to treat you the right way like I did in the beginning. I know my chances are slim to none, but given the opportunity I would not disappoint. I will always love you, and would do anything for another chance with you. Doesn’t have to be now. Please I beg.
And rest assured, here was my response:
“I cannot look past what was disclosed, and what remains hidden from me. It’s over. Let’s both move on.”
Thanks for everything you do!
Cheers!
Gloria
***
Dear Gloria,
Isn’t it peculiar how cheaters have this come to Jesus moment just as you’re packing up your stuff to leave? All that time they had to Get It Right and only now, in this moment of moments, do they want another chance. He’s going to be DIFFERENT now and you don’t want to miss out! Boy howdy, he really sees the error of his ways!
I’m glad you shut him down. Oftentimes chumps toke the hopium pipe and wash up on our shores after their 14th D-day. Or worse, remained locked in some reconciliation hellscape with the username Standing4Marriage and a time-stamped chronology of wandering dick lapses as their tagline. No, really, he’s working the program now.
Thank you for avoiding that fate. You saw through his bogus promises and called it quits.
What is future faking?
Future faking is a form of control. This head game comes up often in dating. Bob can really see you meeting his mother. (His mother is dead.) Wanda is imagining all the beaches you can make love on (while simultaneously texting the same fantasy to 15 other people.) Future faking keeps you on the hook, investing in bad actors, while they’re free to explore other options. But you don’t move on. Wouldn’t want to miss out!
Of course this tactic works also with people you’re already supposedly committed to. As in, hey, they really were going to do their couple’s therapy homework! You were just too impatient!
Why do cheaters future fake?
Because there’s a lot of potential reward for very little bullshit expenditure.
- They avoid consequences.
- Being a Better Person (later) looks good.
- It puts the onus on to your belief in their potential (and off their bad behavior).
So let’s break down what’s he’s doing here before we throw his letter to the UBT to snark.
If you give him another chance, he avoids consequences.
Why didn’t he jump on the opportunity to be a better person earlier? Because you weren’t walking out the door, Gloria. But if he wins this Hail Mary play now he avoids the dreaded specter of divorce. More cake! More chances! No dividing the assets. No ugliness. Just your continued investment.
He’s a ‘better person’ without actually having to be a better person.
Future faking has the added benefit of impression management. He’s not a terrible person who betrayed you. No, he’s a sorrowful man who actually knows how to treat a woman. He just lost his way! Right now, if you act this minute, he will be the man of your dreams! A magnificent partner! A PRIZE. And after all your hard work and 14 D-Days, you don’t want to miss out on the wonderfulness of NEW and IMPROVED him, do you?
It’s a con. This is a sales pitch. You have ample evidence he is not a better person. And really, don’t you have better things to do with your life than wait around see if FWs can transmogrify?
The problem is you don’t believe in him.
He’s the one who’s being rejected here, not you. He’s actually a great person (with some mistakes) and you’re a quitter. The reason you’re getting divorced isn’t his bad behavior (cheating) it’s your lack of belief in him. Hey, he wrote an entire kitchen table note. Aren’t you being hasty?
Now, let’s ask the UBT to decode his letter.
I don’t want this to end.
Note, I did not say “I don’t want US to end.” I miss my entitlement, when I had chumpy unknowing you and my affair(s). Don’t end this, Gloria!
‘Please give me another chance.’
Please give me another chance.
I deserve more chances. Which is an expression of my entitlement. The very same entitlement I purportedly don’t have any more. All better! But you can’t test that theory unless you give me more chances! Jinx!
I know I would never do this again and can prove it to you over our lifetime.
What’s your lifetime worth compared to my lies?
I know I’m to blame, and will bear this for a long time.
This is hard on me. No, harder really.
I want to treat you the right way like I did in the beginning.
I know how to treat a lady. Candlelight dinners. Moonlight walks. Chlamydia.
I know my chances are slim to none, but given the opportunity I would not disappoint.
I will disappoint. But let’s make this about your inability to give me chances.
I will always love you.
I will always love you,
You will always be of use to me. Give me another chance to use you.
and would do anything for another chance with you.
Anything except accepting the consequences of my actions.
Doesn’t have to be now. Please I beg.
Stop these consequences at once. Please, I beg!
We planned to downsize, then he wanted to upsize to a bigger, better house. I searched listings daily, we went to open houses every weekend and private showings during the week. There was always something wrong, either with the house or with the financial timing. I suspect he was future faking to keep me distracted. If we’d moved forward it would have isolated me in a new neighborhood, and trapped me with a mortgage (ours was paid off).
He not only wasted enormous amounts of my time, he also wasted time and inconvenienced real estate agents and numerous home owners who cleared out for his tours.
By accident or on purpose, he left a listing open on our bedroom laptop, along with an email to schmoopie inviting her to move into it with him. She was a catfisher and he was a moron.
The AP in my situation demanded to see our family home in the burbs and photos of our urban “pied a terre.” It’s pretty clear she was inspecting her future real estate holdings. The fact that FW obliged could be seen as “future faking” the AP in the case he never intended to commit which seemed to be the case because he broke it off on D-day and didn’t rekindle the affair even after I threw him out.
But it’s not like I feel bad the AP was duped because the AP’s plans to displace me and the kids and take our family assets weren’t realistic unless our untimely deaths were part of her scheme.
My FW found a beautiful apartment in a small town 1.5 hours away from my work. I could work from home – the commute for the two office days a week would be fine. And it was in a beautiful area near hobbies we enjoyed. I was excited. I spent weeks packing up the old apartment, sent him pictures of all the progress I was doing on packing boxes while he was off on a „business trip“. I bought an expensive kitchen for the apartment with my money. After unpacking, I said we should sell the boxes – after all we wouldn‘t need them for a while, and they might just get moldy in the basement. But he was set that he wanted to keep them. I knew not to argue with him. He also didn‘t want to put up any of my wall hangings and pictures. Strange, but again, I know not to argue. We lived there for 15 months without wall hangings. I was in heavy denial and not understanding I was suffering from a hard discard. Once he even said „if we break up, I want to keep this apartment and you should move out“. Who says that out of the blue to a their wife of 20 years? Then my world blew up on DDay one week before Christmas. He left to celebrate Christmas with his family. I lost a ton of weight, didn‘t sleep for 2 weeks and I packed up all of my clothes and paperwork in record time, without his knowledge, because I became absolutely terrified of the man without the mask. So in a way I was happy that those boxes were still there. I didn‘t have a car in a small town to go buy any. I only needed a few boxes. All my things I took fit in a friends van. I left behind all the beautiful things, the kitchen, he had the car I paid for. WHAT A F++++++ CON! I was played so hard! Was this his plan the whole time?!?!?!? I move all his crap to a new apartment and pay for everything !?!?!?! I am willing to bet that once our divorce is final, he told everyone I was a terrible wife with a deep mental illness who just up and left without telling anyone, and his pity party image management plays out to his friends, family and neighbors, I am sure he can announce that he found twu wuv (she also had a „terrible“ husband and they found each other in these hard times….) and his OW can move in with all her artwork for the walls. Thanks to everyone at CN for the company at the all you can eat s*** buffet.
My FW was cheating on me while we were house hunting, the f*cker. Never in a million years did I think he was capable of the kind of betrayal that he did to me and our kids/family. After D-day while still pick me dancing, one of the things I brought up to him was, “I can’t believe you were house hunting with me while also cheating on me!” And his reply just floored me. He replied with a shrug, “We still needed a house to live in.” WTF? WTF!
The nerve of these disordered people…
Luckily we didn’t buy a house. I caught him before that happened.
We didn’t go as far as getting a realtor or visiting houses, but my fw also talked about buying a house together, discussed cities we’d like to move to, looked at listings, and planned which assets to use for a down payment– all while secretly plotting my downfall with the other woman. These people have no shame.
So he was getting you to do the work of finding a good house for him to move into with his catfisher!?!?!?! Sounds about right for these f-wits.
I hadn’t thought of it, but maybe that was his goal before he ran out of time. He was desperate to hold on to the catfisher, who’d refused to meet with him, and invited “her” to immediately move with him into a rental, a few blocks away.
Months later, after dating yet another woman for a WEEK, he introduced her to our tween by phone and told them he would kick me out so “new mom” could move in. That woman dumped him at the end of the second week.
For then-tween’s stability, I kept the house and still have it.
I suppose he could have been future faking her, too, but really, it just sounds like he had taken leave of his senses entirely.
We’ve got some chumps who have been around for a long time. Has anyone’s cheater actually become a better person post-divorce?
Because I’m 11 years post-divorce and the only thing that has changed about my ex is he’s balder and grayer. He never went to therapy and did any real work to improve himself. He still lies as he breathes and constantly blames others for his problems. If we’d stayed together, I’m confident I’d still be dealing with the same things within the marriage that were driving me crazy then.
The future faking never pans out.
I don’t have much contact with my former FW – it’s been 8 years since our divorce. But I know he’s had some severe health issues, and is now collecting social security (based on my wages since I was the one bringing in an income for most of our 24 yr mirage!) He has a girlfriend who works 2 jobs to support them, they in a rental. I imagine that his standard of living has gone down considerably now that I’m not supporting him. And he can’t spend all of his time running around flirting with younger baristas now that he has these health issues.
I, on the other hand, own my house and I recently married the man of my dreams. Life is good on the other side – thanks, Chump Lady!
Fantastic NB! And I love this for your ex.
I haven’t been divorced that long and am pretty low contact but so far, he doesn’t seem any better. He does go to counseling. Given that I deal with him on an extremely limited basis, I can’t be 100% sure that it isn’t working. What I know is that he still takes zero accountability with me and our kids. So, maybe in his day to day life, there are some counseling-improved differewnces, but neither myself nor my kids are benefiting from it.
He went from an AP, to a gf that he got serious with within weeks who lasted almost a year before he started punishing her for having dated other men before him. (She was 40 when he met her) He is now with someone half his age who he found immediately fter the last relationship ended (my guess, likely before) He is already talking serious with this one too.
So, no, I don’t think he’s gotten any better.
Lolwut? He was mad that a 40yo woman dated other men before him?? He knows he’s not a virgin, right? 😆
Yeah, doesn’t sound much improved.
My #1 Cheater from 38 years ago is more obese, more mean, and miserable per reports. Even with the perfect OW.
I have only been divorced for two years and haven’t had much contact with my ex since then. But we were still cordial and giving each other birthday gifts for a *short* time after divorcing, and I gave him a book on attachment for his birthday just after the divorce.
Apparently he really caught hold of it and suddenly became an attachment theory guru and proselytizes it in nearly every conversation with our kids, his family and friends, etc. Learning how to more securely attach to people has rocked his world, apparently, and made him into a new man. (Yeah, right!)
He started dating someone he met online before the ink was even dry on our divorce (I found out much later), and then got the book from me a month after our divorce.
Now he’s married again and telling the whole world that they’re pledged to securely attach to each other. I am giving it a year, tops.
Nah not Ballbag McGee.
He’s still terrible and still cheating- even though he’s now with the love of his life and not boring old me.
He dresses like an incel and somehow looks older than his own Dad.
Dickhead McCluggage is almost certainly the same as he was with me- he’s just swapped out his mommy bang maid for someone as horrible as himself- it won’t end well.
Dear lord no. Mine got WORSE.
Like when we first started dating I sensed that fw had a dark side but genuinely wanted to be a good person, and was possibly even hoping that my goodness would rub off.
After discovery, fw went full nuclear and embraced the evil. Fw has spent the past few years engaging in the most sneaky, disgusting, and just jaw-droppingly cruel behavior I’ve ever witnessed, aided and abetted by a gang of enthusiastic enablers. If these people change, they only change for the worse.
I have a bit of a longitudinal view of my Cheater…about 7 years worth before he died. He was a very good liar who future-faked our marriage during a 3 year courtship while all along likely not wanting to get married. I Gave him a “shit or get off the pot” ultimatum (long story I wont tell now) but we married, he got caught in cheating at year 18. Wreckonsillyation then living together as a family 7 years after being caught and he was back to being as mean and self absorbed as ever. He was applying for jobs thousands of miles away when he died. He never talked me through wreckonsillyation as he promised to do. He never told me the whole truth. I dont think that he had sex with other women in the last 5 years of his life but other than that, he was FAR from being any version “better man”.
I’m looking forward to a future with Dr Rarity in it!
Eight years out, he is still lying, blaming, and re-writing history. All those years in therapy were not a waste of time and money; they are now an invaluable sanity-saving record of what actually happened to counteract his BS revisionist account. His newest
defense when confronted with lying is “we remember things differently.” Yes, we sure do. I remember facts and he remembers fantasy.
Through my PI who is a retired FBi Special Agent, I found out that Traitor Ex and the primary side piece opened an illicit massage parlor. He is mad at me now because “I am accusing him and his girlfriend of doing something illegal”. I know first hand they do not have anything close to a healthy monogamous committed relationship. He and I didn’t either, but not because I was maintaining a secret sexual double life, lying to him, deceiving him, and joining him in organized criminal activity.
Getting away has only provided me with more and more clarity that divorce was absolutely the right thing to do.
Thanks! I’m checking in with a publisher about turning my dissertation into a book next week. Wish me luck!
And you do sound much better off without your ex. I don’t bring up the past much with mine because the few times I have, his version of events is so distorted, it’s just not worth engaging. Like you said, facts vs fantasy. These people live in un-reality.
“Getting away has only provided me with more and more clarity that divorce was absolutely the right thing to do.”
My experience exactly. The longer I am away, the more reasons I see for why divorce was the only call.
Recently some former associates told me they cut contact after hearing him publicly make some offensive comments and refuse to apologize (they didn’t recall the subject, just that it was bad). The court cut off all contact with tween, now a teen. Another court appointed someone to manage his money, and she reported to the court that his financial improprieties continued and he was lying to her and to banks. He still writes to people who ignore his messages, blaming me for his problems. I saw him at a public event, and he looked mean and bitter.
Cheaters can be bitter bunnies, too?
Say it ain’t so!
LOL
I’ve been divorced almost 14 years and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t changed. He’s in the States and I’m in France so I can’t be sure and my ex-MIL died recently so I have no more real contact with his family. He was over here in August to meet our granddaughter and is still drinking like a fish, from what I see. He looks rough. I also know he still spends money like it’s going out of fashion (I’m SOOO glad to be away from that) since what I figured would be a paid off mortgage by now turned into he re-financed for another 30 years and will now be paying until the age of 90!!!! As to whether or not he’s still violent I don’t know. There is family around in the States so he might not get away with it. On the other hand, he has a foul temper under any circumstances and the drink does him no favours so who knows. As long as it’s nowhere near me or my kids I don’t really care either!
I know very little about my ex at this point, but the report I got some time back was no change at all. Still 100% blaming me while he squires around his lady friend who is likely taking advantage of him financially.
That’s not a good life.
Rarity, i just celebrated 3 years of being happily divorced and 5.5 years after Dday. I don’t believe they change. I saw exFW about six months ago and he looked awful! Older and very slovenly. Guess he doesn’t have all the money he needs to keep up his appearance! Schmoopie needed a lot of cash. He spent $$$$ on courting her (she was 32 years younger and could not hold a steady job). I got the money back in the settlement (thankfully he made tracking down the money very easy).
Not sure if he is still with Schmoopie or found himself another younger Schmoopie.
He has no relationship with our son (son found out about the affair around the same time I did). Son is NC. My son and I are close even though the Navy takes him away quite a bit. He is currently posted about a six hour drive away which lets him come home quite a bit.
As for me I got the marital home in the settlement, a good amount of cash and retirement funds which allowed me to buy a cute little townhouse in a gated community that is paid off and still have money to renovate and save!! It is amazing how much cash flow improves without a FW!!! I retired this year and am quite content.
Based on what I have heard FW still blames me and our son for all his problems but it doesn’t matter to me anymore. FW can say what he wants because anyone who knows me knows that I have a good character and a working moral compass. I don’t believe Cheaters ever change, it would mean doing a lot of work and they are not capable of that.
mine is still wallowing in “it never needed to happen if you had just taken me back ” He is still with OW and yes, older, more set in his ways and wholly unappealing to me in every way.I’m sure other woman loves him, warts and all.
My ex was also a pill addict and quit seven times. He always promised, “This is it.” So I knew all about fake promises. He decided to retire and had all kinds of plans and promises. The first time we separated, he had been retired all of six weeks. He tried to end his life after quitting yet again, and then made yet more promises. We had about six weeks of him working on things and being pleasant, and then he went down a dark hole.
He decided to make sex his retirement hobby, and that became a horror for me. It also became clear to me then that the girlfriend before me may have been in the wings for several decades. He spent most of his day on porn and visited the local shady massage parlor, coming home with a smile. He wanted what I later figured out was an open marriage.
We separated again. He landed in the state and metropolitan area where the old girlfriend lived, last I knew. He promised he would get therapy and be diligent with working on our problems. Never happened. He refused to tell me how he was spending his time but hinted that “a lot” of women were interested in him. He promised me the house of my dreams and all new furniture if I would reconcile. I wondered who would pay for that, because we were comfortable but not like that.
Several times when he was angry with me, he said he’d take away my phone and computer to ensure that I was “all his.” Well, that was a red flag bigger than any before, so I refused to reconcile. He claimed not to know why, and I said, “I can’t trust you at all.” He promised an easy divorce because he “still” loved me, and then gave me an ugly divorce in retribution. More details about his escapades came to light. His own attorney even betrayed him in some ways. We got it done.
Gosh, what a mess. Total future faker. There was nothing left to salvage. Thankfully, I haven’t heard from him in almost three years, as he reportedly has finally got a stable relationship. Well, as we say in the South, bless her heart.
First of all, I am very happy to see our friend Gloria here is sticking to her guns! GET HIM!
At its core, Future Faking (or “False Hope” as we call it at the office),
“Stringing along”, etc. seems to be rooted in two distinct transgressions:
-Exploiting how we are generally wired to be goal/milestone oriented
-(as stated above) trading on Hope rather than, you know, actions.
I don’t know about the rest of you-I was programmed from a very early age to work toward milestones (the bathtub scene in Fight Club sums it up pretty well, “go to college, get a job, get married, have kids”…and then it gets kind of vague). Exploiting that drive is a great “in” for would-be abusers. I was (and to some degree, still am) particularly vulnerable to “we will do ________ together.”
It is my belief that Fuckwits love to run that as part of their playbook. “I will give you what you want, but first, _______” is a POWERFUL motivator-particularly for the ones running the Reconciliation/”I cannot face accountability” playbook. Mine in particularly LOVED to do the “we’ll get a house/have kids, but first I have to _______” thing. If my dumb ass wasn’t in love with her…I probably would have seen how much the goalposts on all of that got moved back every time one of those mile markers passed.
It’s not necessarily isolated to Fuckwits-I can just as cleanly tie it to good, old fashioned, garden variety “User” manipulative behaviors. You do what they ask and either the goalposts get moved back, some “crisis” emerges (so still more of “you will get what you want-just not right now”, let’s divert attention), or “well, I WAS, but I changed my mind, sorry!” “Why buy milk” and all. It’s part of why any time I see “let’s see what all I can get out of this one” anymore, I simply get up and leave.
And well, trading on Hope as a part of all of that. We all got through small incidents and arguments with our Fuckwits prior to D-Day/periods of prolonged (and ultimately founded) paranoia. “We’ll get through this, too! This is just another challenge! True love…etc etc”. It is part of the abuse-it confounds us. It tricks us. It externalizes hope when really, Hope really needs to come from US. As I wander away from codependence I try to internalize this more and more. Externalized hope is so…just…dangerous.
TLDR We get exploited through the POTENTIAL for the fulfillment of desires and that self motivates us so that they can continue to allocate their resources to further horrors.
Have a Mighty Monday!
The biggest Hail Mary future fake of them all:
Universal Bullshit Translation
One of the things that will always stick out in my mind was not long after I caught FW#2 cheating on me, he proclaimed with mildly teary eyes, “I want to be your HERO again one day.”
I told him, “That ship sailed buddy, can’t get that one back. Me and the children will never see you the same way again and you have no one to blame but yourself and your own choices and actions.”
He replied, “Well, I am still going to try.”
Spoiler alert – it didn’t work.
He gambled and lost. Lost BIG!
It sucks to suck.
If it’s tied to the expectation of sex, future faking can also relate to rape by deception.
My #1 cheater was busy with OW and also looking for a house with me..he was miserable instead of excited. I’m so thankful as D day came after not agreeing on any house before the birth of our baby. That would have been another mess to deal with.
#2 cheater was always shopping at Lowes or Home Depot to do projects for our aging house. These projects were started but never completed. There was wood planks under beds, a garage full of various materials for projects, a guest room getting stuffed with tools and material to do projects. My X liked to shop but not do. I got used to it sadly and if we hit a rough patch he would just tell me what he would do for the house and I would believe him. Future faking works as HOPIUM to keep going. Just ask me. Until D day, then i saw nothing was worth staying for.
in the year before D-day, i renovated the house, as in the whole house, and it was a big fucking job, and involved moving out of the house for 8 months. but i did it, even though i had my own work that i largely put on hold.
X had the audacity to say, after separation, that the house “really wasn’t to his taste”. the fucker. i went through everything with him, all the way through the build, and IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH, IT WAS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH.
yes, this still makes me mad, five years out. i’ve got ‘the Novembers’ and doing the best i can, but, man, what a colossal waste of time.
#shouty
Holy This Old House, Batman! You did an entire renovation yourself? You are mighty! It wouldn’t surprise me if he said it “really wasn’t to his taste” just to hurt you, not because he particularly believed it. What an asshat.
Future faking is a standard, almost universal cult/sex-abuse grooming tactic. Also works great for political utopias such as the 1000-year Reich.
It makes present abuses and atrocities tolerable. It’s very gradually turned up to ever more fantastical dreams & earnest promises, simultaneously with the temperature of the boiling water, to keep the frog from noticing the temperature.
Mike Bickle the recently disgraced televangelist & founder of IHOP (international house of prayer) had told at least 3 or more of his SA victims (secretly to each) that God revealed to him in a vision that his wife would soon die in an earthquake and he’d marry her (victim), which is how the victims justified the years long SA. Also his favorite sermons were from Song of Solomon, another man of God with a harem that Mike could only salivate & fantasize over all day. Bickle had a large gaggle of gals in his elite prayer team upon whom he bestowed his ‘bridal anointing’ . You can’t make this stuff up.
I wish my ex-cobra simply future faked me than actually marry and have kids then cheat when we had 2 kids under 2, now thankfully all grown. No🤮 he hasn’t improved some 20 yrs later. Last year he was discovered to have a secret 4yr old lovechild (he & OWhore have a middle school kid).
But OWhore will never leave and he knows it. She loves the image, she invested everything… plus they just got a huge new house with a sizeable mortgage. She gets to keep her beat-up aging spendypants prize, pay its endless debts and eventually change its diapers while it continues to forever cheat and disrespect her.