‘Cheating Has Affected My Entire Life’
A chump writes in to reflect on all the ways cheating has affected her life. From her parent’s marriage, to her sibling relationships, and to her own marriage.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I have been reading your column for many years. Your book saved my sanity having been to several family and marital councilors while still married to the cheater.
My story begins with my mother who was married young and had a child shortly after her first of five marriages. Her husband would not accept the baby as his and they divorced. Soon after my mother met my father and they married and he adopted her fist born.
This sibling would hold resentment toward me and my other brothers due to his feelings that he had been treated differently. My mother claimed my father was possessive and divorced him due to this and his alcohol habit.
But was he possessive for good reason?
She moved us to the city far away from our father and the country life we knew and loved. My oldest brother joined the navy, my middle brother got married, and my brother six years older than myself enlisted in the Army with my mother’s consent.
This enlisted brother had been going with a girl and had given her an engagement ring. One day my other brother saw her cheating with another man and told him. Distraught from the news, he signed up for a voluntary mission to be a helicopter door gunner. This was during the Vietnam war. On this mission he was shot. He survived but not without lifelong disability and horrific scaring.
My other brother would feel lifelong regret for divulging the cheating.
I’ve since learned that the volunteer missions were common with the men who learned they had been cheated on.
My mother had many boyfriends. I was an intuitive child and warned her of many of them. To her surprise, finding that I was correct in my concerns.
My mother began having an affair with a married man when I was 13.
He was Catholic. He treated me well; helped me to get my first horse and was kind to me. We would fly to various destinations in his private plane. He convinced my mother to move to Phoenix, Arizona. I blended right in with the friendly people there, did well in the school system, and began riding horses at a horse rental company. I made several good friends and was feeling secure.
When she finally decided that her married boyfriend was not going to divorce his wife who also had an adopted daughter my age, she broke up. I was allowed to stay for a short while with strange men coming to our apartment door because she had joined a singles club to meet men. It was a scary thing for me.
Mother had always left me alone while she went out on dates.
Soon after she shipped me to my father’s on a bus. She neglected to tell my father, however, and I arrived at around midnight and the bus station closed. I was set out alone at age 14, in a large city bus depot to await my uncle who had to drive two hours to collect me. My father by this time was badly affected by alcoholism and his rule was to not let me go anywhere or have activities away from our very isolated home.
I rebelled and ran away.
My attempt to get him to quit drinking failed. After returning, he sent me to live with my brother and his wife. By then I was 16 years old. I caught my brother’s wife making out with the neighbor, cheating on my brother when he was at work, working hard to support his wife children and me.
I told him about the cheating. His wife got grabbed me and tore hair from my head, but I escaped her. They divorced. My brother raised his children.
I married young.
When I was single, I purchased my first home at age 22, but married to please the parents. Soon I discovered how abusive this man was and divorced him after 10 years. I was very underweight and had developed a debilitating auto immune disorder due to chronic stress. I was married a second time for over 20 years until I discovered his cheating.
Not wanting to give up a long-term marriage and one with many good years, I stayed for four more years until once again discovering another affair, and ended the marriage.
The worst was the harm from him abandoning the daughter he raised from my first marriage. He ripped the family apart and married the girlfriend younger than the daughters he raised.
It has been a long tumultuous road to recovery.
And perhaps I may never feel fully recovered because cheating has affected so many aspects of my life and those I love. In my opinion cheating should be in divorce law as abuse and there should be consequences. As well the “alienation of affection” laws should be applicable. Many women do not get adequate representation, me included.
Thank you for all you do and the help you have brought to others.
One Chump’s Story
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Dear One Chump,
You’re mighty for surviving all that. While I was reading about your mother, I kept thinking what danger you were in around all those strange suitors coming to the door when you were a young teen. I’m glad you weren’t assaulted.
Your story highlights how infidelity is never just between two people in a marriage, or presumably committed relationship. It has ripple effects. Willing and unwilling conspirators. Traumatized children. Dangerous risks taken from losing your mind out of heartbreak.
The story of your brother blaming himself for telling is tragic.
He was put in the position of unwilling conspirator and he refused the role, out of loyalty and a sense of justice. The person who set that heartbreak in motion was his unfaithful fiancee. I wonder if she racks herself with guilt. I doubt it. Instead, it’s the people who really love your brother who hurt.
Many FWs have ripped your family apart, as you write. But remember you’re still a family, just minus the FW. You’re a show-up person holding the family together. And that matters, to your daughters and brothers. All we can do is live life by our own values.
I don’t know what cheaters get in the end. Your mother got five bad marriages and a host of disappointing boyfriends by the sound of it. Your ex got a younger girlfriend, but lost his family. They’re idiots, really. Damaging, selfish idiots.
Thanks for sharing your story. Big ((hugs)).
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I never thought about it before but my family life has been devastated by cheating in similar fashion to the OPs.
The “quest for exuberance/aliveness” carries a very high price, paid for everyone in the blast zone around the abuser. It is not quite so exuberant when you look at it like that.
Those who care about “exuberance” and “aliveness” *care about themselves only*. And emphatically do *not* care about their spouses or their children. It really is that simple. Weakness, selfishness, and entitlement. They *do not care* about others, even those (or perhaps especially those) that they were supposed to care about.
It is hard to describe the trauma in a society which largely accepts infidelity.
The impact can either teach the nervous system it’s better to be abused than be alone or it can teach the victim how to survive.
Everytime a chump speaks up, moves out, moves on the message ripples. Hopefully. there will be more resources available for chumps with children to maintain safety.
During my 2-year wreckconciliation, I tried repeatedly to get my FW to understand that he hadn’t just cheated on me. We were together for 39 years, married for 34 and have 3 adult children together. He cheated on me for 36 of those 39 years. I told him that he cheated on his children when they were toddlers and their entire lives, he betrayed my sisters who thought he hung the moon, and he deceived all our friends and anyone who’d ever known him. He kept saying no, I didn’t do any of that, I only cheated on you (as if that was OK). We’ve been divorced for more than 3 years now, his kids barely speak to him, and he’s lost all our mutual friends. I sometimes wonder if he still think he “just” cheated on me.
I second Best Thing’s view that FW psychology is “fascinating.”
On this forum, we’re usually wisely advised to avoid “untangling the skein of f*ckedupedness” (CL’s pithy term for it) because the most accessible resources for “untangling” are pop psych and “RIC” resources which typically take a coddling, sympathetic view of FWs and frame them as “fixable.” But since I used to work in advocacy for DV and SA survivors, I tend to view any form of domestic abuse– including the “subviolent” forms like coercive control– through a more “forensic” lens because that was the nature of the material advocates trained with, not pop psychology resources or “couples counseling.” And the really chilling thing is that the criminal psych perspective places FWs solidly on a criminal spectrum with domestic batterers and (yikes) serial killers. As far as I understand, the recidivism rate for domestic batters is about 98.5% even with therapy and prison time and serial killers are not known to be reformable.
Not kidding that the most cutting edge clinical forensic literature on batterer psychology and serial killer psychology shares multiple overlaps with typical cheater mentality and behaviors give or take fists, guns or garrotes. One of the “overlaps” which you can read about in a study on serial killers and something called “neutralization” in criminal psychology (Google “MDPI Denying the Darkness: Exploring the Discourses of Neutralization of Bundy, Gacy, and Dahmer by Veronyka James”) is the most glaring. I first read about “neutralization”– aka, “guilt reduction strategy”– in a book on DV titled The Batterer: A Psychological Profile by Donald Dutton and Susan Golant. From the experience you describe, “neutralization” fits perfectly with your ex’s strange ability to distort reality and deny the full scope of harm he’s done to others.
In short, “neutralization”– which was first conceived of in the 1950s to understand serial youth offenders and then eventually applied to the most serious serial offenses– is a learned mental trick by which serial offenders of all stripes can selectively “toggle off” their own empathy in order to reduce guilt and social stigma for past crimes or pave the way for future ones. They do this by mentally denying responsibility for the offense, denying the injury (claiming no one was harmed or that the victim “faked” an injury), denying the victim (blaming the victim for causing or deserving the offense), appeal to higher loyalties, and condemnation of the condemners (dismissing anyone who would judge them as corrupt or incompetent hypocrites).
Though serial offenders may have a normal baseline capacity for empathy (how they can cry over, say, lost puppies in the pound or at a sad movie, etc.), the fact that they have this internal “empathy off switch” is what makes them all the more dangerous because they simply don’t “read” as dangerous or dishonest(because they can tamp down guilt, they have none of the furtive, defensive behaviors typically associated with scary individuals). Furthermore, the depths to which individuals like this can invest in their own false alibis and narratives (the best liars believe their on lies) increases the power of something called “cognitive capture” in their victims. Especially following a deeply shocking, traumatic experience when victims are confused and emotionally dysregulated, encountering a perpetrator who seems 1000% convinced that no harm was done or that the victim “deserved” it can be emotionally spellbinding. This is sometimes called “projective identification” to explain why SA victims often feel inexplicably “tainted” by the crimes committed against them for which they had no fault at all. What’s worse, the tactic of neutralization can also spellbind bystanders or even law enforcement regarding the perpetrator’s supposed innocence so that victims may initially get no help or support (i.e., Jeffrey Dahmer convincing police that a victim who tried to escape was actually Dahmer’s boyfriend who was merely confused due to a “drug bender” so that police delivered the victim back to Dahmer’s clutches to be unalived).
Anyway, the point is that what you saw your ex doing– denying the collateral harm he committed to bystanders and other family members– smacks of “neutralization.” It also explains how you became entrapped to begin with and likely why it was difficult to escape at first: even the FBI probably couldn’t have flagged your ex as a chronic liar and serial abuser. It could also explain why it was difficult for you to escape if this individual managed to convince everyone around you that he was a “good guy” (as your sister’s believed at first) because, if everyone bought his act, you would have no tactical support in escaping. The fact that he can continue to spin his false narrative even following exposure and rejection by everyone in the social circle shows how deeply ingrained his own rationalization system is.
To sum it up, the fact that you escaped at all is testimony to your own grit because, in a statistical sense, you likely dodged a bigger bullet than you know. How big the “bullet” could have eventually become and how much damage he could eventually have inflicted is guesswork at this point because– yay– you’re not around him to find out. But the fact that he even obviously shares a mental quirk with serial killers means you can’t put anything past someone like that. The really scary thing about neutralization is that it’s like a skeleton key that can “open all doors” and “rationalize all offenses” no matter how dark. I believe it’s how an individual like Chris Watts was able to go from serial infidelity to family annihilation without a preceding gradual escalation of physical violence: because the same guilt-neutralizing “skeleton key” that opened the “cheating” door also just as easily opened the “unaliving” door.
You should be commended for getting out.
Wow, Hell of a Chump, this all is mindblowing and SO very helpful. I remember telling him, “the mental processes you use are the same thing serial killers do, the compartmentalization, maintaining a secret life, etc.” Of course, he responded with, “So now you’re saying what I did is a bad as murder???” I said no, but honestly, it’s pretty damn horrific.
Thank you so much for posting this info about neutralization. I’ve long been scared that he will try to unalive me now. When I sold our marital house and moved a year ago, I didn’t want him to know where I live but our youngest adult child lives with me. She’s moving out soon and I’m now wondering about taking significant steps to protect myself. I literally wouldn’t put anything past him. When you can turn off guilt, empathy, and remorse like it’s a light switch, you’re capable of anything. I’m sure he’d like to stop paying me alimony. You’ve given me so much to think about. This all helps me understand why I stayed for so long. It was so hard to come to terms with and accept what he truly is. He’s so convincing. Thank you.
The reason that coercive control was finally criminalized in the UK and Scotland (getting up to fourteen years in prison in the latter country) was because the science correlating coercive control with domestic unaliving (with or without history of physical assault) is rock solid and incontestable.
Consequently, no victim of coercive control should ever again have to wring their hands worrying whether it’s “crazy” or “hyperbolic” or “catastrophizing” to take every measure possible to protect themselves against potentially violent post-separation abuse by former coercively controlling abusers. No victim should ever again have to defend themselves from judgy bystanders who try to paint security measures as “excessive” either. Yet that revelation– that coercive control is considered the forensic “golden thread” best predicting eventual lethal violence– has been slow to spread among the public so victims still second guess their security instincts and dim-witted bystanders still judge them for it.
Always better to err on the side of safety.
Honestly, what he did should have gotten him prison time. It was all so abusive and cruel. People should not be allowed to do what he did and just walk away.
It’s interesting, isn’t it?
For whatever reason I saved a lot of old emails from an old friend with whom I often discussed FW’s behaviour.
I looked at them again during my court case and I’m glad I did- I’d forgotten all those things and saw the pattern emerging that I certainly didn’t see – or didn’t want to- at the time.
It’s amazing how much is blanked out or forgotten.
I think if our lizard brain risk management faculty picks up on any viable danger from an abuser in moments when the power imbalance is mostly on the abuser’s side and if that internal risk accountant doesn’t like the odds for a safe extraction, some degree of “betrayal blindness” will kick in to prevent that confrontation. Proof that this “captor bonding/betrayal blindness” is an adaptive survival mechanism among humans is that this “blindness” can lift in an instant once the victim finally sees a clear path of escape. But because only the victim can really perceive what the stakes are and their and their children’s relative safety, onlookers often chalk up the hesitation to escape to just waffling or cOdEpEnDenCe. Plus the victim themselves may have difficulty explaining their own behavior to bystanders because the process is almost entirely unconscious and furthermore has to be unconscious lest the abuser/captor pick up on the subtlest cues of rebellion in the victim/captive.
Prof. Jennifer Freyd’s betrayal blindness theory is really helpful because it goes one step beyond traditional thinking on captor bonding/Stockholm syndrome. She forms a sort of algorithm of relative powerlessness that predicts how blind different individuals might become to betrayal within different circumstances. For instance, she used the example of an individual of minority status trying to pursue a career in a heavily white, often racist field who unconsciously began to numb themselves to racist microaggressions because confronting the latter risked losing their job and being robbed of their aspirations. Then she uses the obvious example of women with dependent children being entrapped by abusers, etc.
This attitude is part of the FW’s Delusion. FW psychology is fascinating, I think most of them have not the first clue that their behavior impacts everybody, because they never think about everybody – only themselves. My FW was shocked to the core to discover that his kids, his in-laws, and most of his own blood relatives did not accept my replacement with unquestioning, loving acceptance. He honestly had no idea of reality and thought his fantasy life of one big happy family with his mistress by his side would be realized. Hmmm…. I’m going with a “no” on that one.
Mine too! He’s so sad our adult children are so mean to him because they won’t talk to him. Meanwhile, at least one struggles with trusting anyone she might date, they both look back at times when he ignored them (a couple of times when they were actually in danger) and was mean to them (impatient to go meet up with his strippers or alarmed that the kids’ innocent attempts at conversation might lead them figure out his secret life), and they are both convinced that he never really loved them and all their childhood memories of him were lies. So. Much. Damage. And after all that, he can only complain about how sad HE is.
Exactly the behaviors of my FW narcopath. They recall the being late to pick them up which we later knew were because he was with escorts. His absence and neglect which I spackled over.
FW narcopath actually whines to them about his loneliness while completely whitewashing all the harm he’s done. I do not lie to my children by saying that oh daddy really loves you and didn’t mean to forget to attend your graduation. As painful as it may be now it’s better to know the truth that he’s a twisted selfish narcissist sociopath.
I don’t want to gaslight traumatized children.
The devastation of cheating runs so much deep. With your brother taking that volunteer (re: s**c*de) mission, and that being common among military men who had been cheated on, that is evidence of a kind of pain and grief that cheaters just don’t ever consider.
My mom had a sister. My aunt Leigh. I never got to meet my aunt because she took her own life before I was born. Why? Because her husband cheated. She couldn’t take the pain. She was an incredibly successful woman who spoke multiple languages and was working towards being a UN interpreter. In her note, she said she felt the only thing she’d ever failed at was her marriage. Except she didn’t fail, HE did. My aunt was faithful. The AP was at my parent’s wedding. After my aunt’s death, he sold their home, took all the money and disappeared. He was that level of absolute b*stard.
That’s all I know about him. I don’t know his name. Nothing about his job, his family, or anything else about him as a person. Nobody who knew him feels he deserves to be spoken about in any capacity beyond his selfishness.
I know my aunt was ambitious. I know she succeeded in every endeavor she set to. She was educated and multilingual. She was also beautiful. I’ve seen pictures of her and she had stunning black hair and looked like my grandmother’s spitting image.
We choose to talk about her. F**k him.
I am not Catholic but I definitely apppreciate and agree with the wisdom of the Ten Commandments. I have always felt that infidelity was wrong and have never had that on my list of character issues, but after DDay I understood much more clearly why that behavior made the list of ten things not to do.
Infidelity, and that’s the word I like, creates ungodly irreconcilable loyalty issues that warps the psyches of basically functional adults. I hate hate hate thinking about what it does to children. Like a nuclear blast, the fallout from illicit relationships adversely affects everyone in every direction, far out into the future and down through the generations. It creates radioactive waste that goes far and wide and deep, on and on, in all directions.
No wonder it made the Top Ten List of Things Not To Do.
I just sent Tracy a case I learned about last night. A woman in her forties having an affair with a 25 year old guy. They m*rder the husband. The police wiretaps reveal the cheaters, self-proclaimed godly Christians, praying they won’t get caught and for God to protect them from law enforcement. I listened to the detectives’ interview of the woman. My jaw was on the floor for the entire hour.
Bottom line? PLEASE trust that they suck, and the damage is major.
Hugs to all who come to these hallowed shores.
Thank you Tracy and all who share their experience, strength, hope, and recovery here.
♥️
I am so sorry for your story One Chump. You and your family went through so much. Thank you for sharing your story. And it makes me also so very sad for the kids, Velvet Hammer. Today is my 19th wedding anniversary. Divorce dragging on over 1.5 years now. I am so sad about what has happened with my nephews. I don’t have any kids. My nephews were extra special to me. We were so close. I loved spending time with them. At the beginning of the very unexpected separation, I was naive and thought I could still have some sort of relationship with them, even though I moved out without warning FW and wanted to go no contact with him during the beginning of the separation. Fast forward 3 months to stalking, harassing emails, and a desist letter to their mom, and I can only imagine the smear campaign against me. The boys told me they want nothing to do with me, because of who I am. How can these poor boys make sense of what has happened to their family. They must know deep down that their aunt loved them so much. I can barely make sense of what happened and I was there for all of it (except the cheating). It is just so sad.
I can relate, TheArtOfChumping. Smear campaigns abound in my family. Ugh.
“that behavior made the list of ten things not to do”. Actually made the list twice – #7 and #10.
That is a heart wrenching story, One Chump. I hope you have found peace and healing. For me, remaining single is the only way to achieve that. I also witnessed cheating as a child and was cheated on in the only serious relationships I ever had. I’m not taking the chance of being chumped and otherwise abused again, because the last time nearly ended me. I agree that infidelity should qualify as abuse in family court.
What a heartbreaking story demonstrating the nuclear bomb effect of cheating on families and children.
One such example is in my fiancé’s family. Grandma female FW cheater commits paternity fraud multiple times in a marriage, and one of the products is mistreated her entire life because the husband figured it out. That abused girl got a job and eventually seemed to have a decent life, doting on her own boy. Except she was unable to teach her only child how to spot a narc and he marries a sadistic FW narc that trapped him with questionable pregnancy. Abused girl now woman, couldn’t protect her son from protracted abuse by the DIL because she couldn’t battle the mean overbearing lying woman who resembled her own abusive cheating mother. Decades later very likely 2 out of 3 grandchildren aren’t even really her son’s due paternity fraud by the FW daughter in law.
And so the cycle repeats.
My childhood was chaotic. My mother had unaddressed childhood trauma and became an addict. She was vengeful, violent, and controlling. My dad was completely passive. We clashed a lot, and ultimately they cut me off financially when I was in college because I wouldn’t bow to my mother.
Then my ex. He also had unaddressed childhood trauma and became an addict with the same qualities as my mother. For over a decade, our home life was chaotic. I gave him my all and was a devout wife, believing out of religious guilt that I had to stay, no matter what, even through infidelity.
But I refused to reconcile during separation #2. My STBX kicked off the divorce, which immediately ramped up into a wild mess. I never regretted my legal team, though, because they got it settled and walked me through to the other side.
The final split occurred after my ex retired. My dreams for that period of life were shattered. But I accepted the new reality and reinvented myself. I pushed all but a few close friends to the outskirts. I found new friends and new pursuits. I traveled solo, even internationally.
I was back where I grew up earlier this year, making arrangements and leading the services for my last older relative. Even in old age, she was such a rock to me and talked me through my divorce, having been through two divorces in the 1960’s when it was fault-only. She and husband #3 had been married 40 years when he died. I also did his funeral and stayed a total of six weeks to make sure my aunt was taken care of. My parents’ grave is in the same cemetery where we buried my relative. I felt like a major chapter had been closed when I flew home.
A lot of turmoil in my life, but where I am now is very, very good. I don’t have to define my present in terms of my past, and I’m glad my young adults have learned to move beyond that, too. Both are in very good places in their professional and personal lives.
For me, my #1 ex affected grandchildren plus adult children, forever as did #2..very low contact with step grandchildren since my divorce. Kids I loved for 30 years..poof gone Me? Sadly, I look at every man, yes even and especially men sitting in pews at church…. as especially my second cheater did ….and as I look at these guys I say to myseif…has he cheated and been forgiven? Will that one cheat? Is he cheating now? Like that..even when woman GUSH about the wonderful guy they have married..I Still wonder ,,what does she NOT know..and sure, but have you looked in the basement? So I’m damaged like that. I trust no one. It is sad especially when I was Ssooo trusting until the 3 year affair of #1 and me pregnant. Just damaged 💔…but at peace. No intimate relationship will be mine in the future and that is sweet by me.
The ripple effects are something I think a lot about. I was fortunate not to encounter cheating in my FOO (at least not in ways that affected me). However, my FW’s cheating and discard alone had profound effects. My children were devastated and lost trust in a fundamental way about many things in life, but primarily relationships. My son, who talked about his two future children frequently when he was 10 (very cute, he had them named already), now at 16 doesn’t think he will get married and is avoiding girls altogether because they may cheat on him. My daughter is stressed by the prospect of a future wedding, including seating arrangements and walking down the aisle by herself (no thanks, dad). My immediate family is left with confusion, disbelief, heartbreak and (hurtful to me) attempts to rationalize and seek revenge, leading to our estrangement for the last 18 months. My aunt can no longer come to my son’s sporting events because the chance of encountering FW is unbearably stressful. FW’s dad (whom I’ve always had a warm connection with) has been fed lies that I broke up the family, leading to his estrangement from me (not something I am open to hear time and again) and, more heartbreakingly, from my parents who have been this good man’s social support network (he is 83 but in our country of origin it’s 20 years older than average lifespan, so all his contemporaries are gone and he has become even more isolated in his old age, thanks son). I am currently on disability with autoimmune-like symptoms (as the OP) and frequently wonder if the stress of separation, litigation and financial worry are behind my condition. The worry to my family from my uncertain health status is hugely destabilizing. My son is heading to Grade 11 and, instead of focusing on his studies he has the added burden of helping me with basic tasks. It’s just a lot all around. We had what I believed was a “good enough marriage”. We had fun times and a lot of positives and the discard was out of the blue. It’s hard to imagine that the burden to FW of staying in the marriage to try and work through issues was anywhere near the cost that ensued from him upgrading to a younger partner. The whole situation makes me believe that FW and I have fundamental incompatibility in understanding what this life is for.
One of my children in particular has — after her father was revealed to be a FW — issues with trusting people she might date.
She did say if she ever does get married, she wants me to walk her down the aisle.
The ripples in the pond are far bigger than outsiders ever imagine.
Broken children who grow into troubled adults, ongoing terrible behaviour modeled in the new relationships the FW inflicts on everyone, unsafe and sometimes terrible behaviour exhibited by those traumatised by the FW.
Some of us pull out of it and get back on a good path and some fall into the darkness or end up in prison for their less than rational choices- it’s still a choice to choose behaviour but trauma and displacement can really do a number on some- it’s not an excuse but can explain a lot in some cases.
Meanwhile in ‘oh he cheated tut tut tut but now you can just move on and live happily ever after in rose tinted glasses’ land, we all know it’s a new and alien landscape where so much has been vaporised from our lives forever .
The sense of safety and certainty, what you thought were good friendships, watching terrible people raise your children who shouldn’t be in charge of a houseplant, having to fight in court for a divorce you don’t want and didn’t ask for when you’d rather spend that energy and money on healing, the frustrating ignorance of well meaning family members, seeing how vicious and dangerous the FW actually is and realising just how unsafe you were for so many years.
But here we all are- we got out and we’re still standing.
Another thing I’ve discovered through this is how much cheating goes on, but victims stay quiet about it because of misplaced shame. Both of my parents were cheated on in their first marriages, something I didn’t know until recently (my dad told me when he was suffering from dementia, my mom told me when I told her about my own FW). A cousin reached out to me and told me both his wives cheated on him. Another cousin’s son also reached out to me because his ex-wife had cheated on him. Even my hair stylist told me she divorced because her husband cheated and that she felt so alone because she was too ashamed to tell anyone, even her own family.
It’s true: “The shame must change sides.”
It’s an extremely tragic story, and it started with a mother who showed sexual promiscuity from a very young age. Quite a lot of teenagers get pregnant at the age of 13-14 and even at the age of 12, but not all of them become sluts (I would like to use more harsh words, but I’m afraid I’ll be banned by censorship). But it seems to me that it all started from an earlier generation, from the family of the OP’s mother or father.
By the way, I apply my judgment to male sluts of all ages as well.
Sluts remain sluts all their lives, with very few exceptions.
There was something deeply unhealthy about OP mother’s morals and character traits. Because this is a morality that is literally ingrained in the essence of a person when their own self is formed in them, that is, in childhood, teen years, in early adolescence.
And unfortunately, she was unlucky with men, all of whom (with the exception of her brothers) demonstrated extreme selfishness, deceit, and lack of human dignity, even her mother’s lover in Arizona, who betrayed his wife for a long time.
An endless cycle of sexual promiscuity, selfishness and infidelity… It was necessary to have great inner strength in order not to slip into this chaos, not to become the same as those disgusting people who surrounded OP.
And you know, I think this story is optimistic.
Because One Chump not only physically survived, but also remained a Human Being in the highest sense of the word. Having broken the vicious family cycle of violence, she suffered the right to a decent life, and I am sure that her descendants will be like her, and not like their grandfathers, grandmothers and her bastard husband.
I am sure that Thomas Huxley was deeply right, who expressed the belief that in our world, in the end, evil never wins, and the virtuous are not punished. And the OP’s story, as well as the stories of all the betrayed partners and their betrayed kids, confirms this judgment.