Did The Other Woman ‘Save Him’?
She’s comparing herself to the Other Woman and wondering did she save him from a bad marriage? Maybe he is happier now. Or is this all an affair fantasy?
***
Dear Chump Lady,
My husband of many years had an affair and is now living with the other woman. I’m still stuck on the question I know I’m probably not supposed to care about anymore:
Is this real love, or affair fantasy?
We have two children and had what I thought was a real, imperfect, long marriage. There were hard years — I dealt with chronic health struggles, multiple surgeries, physical pain, raising our kids, managing our home, bills, and all the exhaustion that comes with actual life.
I was not a perfect wife. I got overwhelmed, I got angry, I complained, I didn’t always want sex. And I didn’t like being grabbed in front of the kids. Sometimes intimacy felt like one more demand when I was already depleted.
I can see things now that I wish I had done differently.
Unfortunately, my brain has turned that insight into a full-time prosecution of myself. Because she seems to give him everything I think I failed to give him. Constant affection. Attention. Sex. Excitement. Kissing. Cuddling. Pillow talk. “I love you” all the time.
He told her talking to her gave him butterflies, even when she was mad at him. He told her she was out of his league. Told her he had loved her for a long time. He said the first time they danced, he knew he was “in trouble.” They talked and FaceTimed constantly. They took a trip together. Their messages were intensely romantic and sexual. He asked her about fantasies and how kinky she wanted to be — things he used to ask me a long time ago.
And now they live together, immediately after our separation. This is also not the first time she has been involved in a relationship that began with infidelity.
Meanwhile, apparently I have learned that I was starring in a completely different marriage than he was.
He says he was miserable for five years.
Now he says he is happier now because he isn’t “fighting every day.” He described our marriage as having “some sweet moments.” Some sweet moments? I remember problems. I do not remember a five-year emotional hostage situation.
But I also remember asking him for more help, more time together, and more connection. I handled most of the house and kids. He was often gone working, helping friends, or doing other things. I wanted him too. Apparently that part has disappeared from the historical record.
Marriage counseling was another mind-bender.
He told me he was using a counselor. I later discovered he had not even made an appointment. When I got involved and the affair started being discussed, he got angry that he hadn’t been given enough time to sort out his issues before being harangued about the other woman.
I was also told that investigating was pushing him toward her. Which is quite a magic trick: have an affair, then make the betrayed spouse responsible for making the affair more appealing by noticing it.
His family is angry with me too.
After we separated, his family turned on me, calling me vindictive and attacking my character. I even tried to be overly fair about dividing our belongings just to keep the peace, but the hostile narrative about me had already been set. I’m terrified the story has now become: Mean Wife Abandons Poor Miserable Husband, and Wonderful Other Woman Sweeps In to Save Him.
And here is the humiliating part:
I still compare myself to her.
I think maybe she is simply better for him. Maybe she is softer. More affectionate, more sexual, more fun. More admiring. Maybe he finally found the person he should have married. Then I think: of course an affair looked more exciting than a long-term marriage with children, health crises, chores, bills, grief, exhaustion, and daily responsibilities.
One relationship got secrecy, anticipation, novelty, sexual intensity, and escape. The other got real life. But now they have been together long enough that I’m afraid I can’t dismiss it as “affair fog.” They are living together. They have had time for some reality to set in.
So what am I actually looking at?
Does the intensity of their relationship mean they discovered some extraordinary love that was missing from our marriage? Can secrecy, validation, sexual novelty, limerence, and escape create something that feels like profound love? And if they stay together, does that prove his rewrite of our marriage was true? Does their relationship succeeding mean I really was the wrong wife? I know cheating was his choice. I know he had other options. And I know marital problems do not require an affair as a solution. But I still cannot seem to stop interpreting their chemistry as evidence against me. I don’t need anyone to promise me he’ll come back.
I want to understand what happened without deciding that another woman being exciting to my husband proves I failed at being his wife.
Please tell me what I’m looking at.
Still Comparing Myself to the Affair Partner
***
Dear Still Comparing,
Please tell me what I’m looking at.
I can tell you what you’re NOT looking at. Yourself.
At no point in this long recitation of self-loathing and second guessing did you ever ask if this relationship was acceptable to you.
Instead, you spend a lot of time in the skein trying to figure out if he’s truly happy and what that means about your self-worth.
Absolutely nothing. His happiness or unhappiness has nothing to do with your intrinsic value as a human being. You set your value, not him.
Is a lying POS who fakes therapy a person you see a future with? Could you possibly respect such a person?
Is a woman who f*cks married men in your moral universe? Why on earth would you compare yourself? Boy, I wish I could wear a capri leg like Andrew Tate. Do you see how moronic this thinking is? Andrew Tate is revolting.
The Other Woman didn’t save him, she conspired in your abuse with him.
And that’s what you’re reacting to — two awful people who devalued you, and tried to make their Twu Wuv about your “failures.” Because they need justifications to behave unethically. Because your husband didn’t have the moral fiber to end his marriage honestly (if he was so miserable. And I doubt he was.)
And you’re buying their bullish*t. Stop it.
Is this real love, or affair fantasy?
Who cares? It’s his future now, not yours. Pivoting back to our original point: IS THIS RELATIONSHIP ACCEPTABLE TO YOU? He cheated on you and blamed you for it. Game over.
If he feels butterflies or diverticulitis is no concern of yours.
He’s history.
I was not a perfect wife.
He was not a perfect husband. But only one of you behaved abusively — he did. By having an affair, he continued to extract value you from, letting you believe your world was safe when it wasn’t. He blamed you for his abuse and risked your health and your children’s intact family to get his dick wet. Why are you seeing this as a you problem?
Self reflection, the ability to look honestly upon our faults is a good quality. But it’s not the proper response to abuse.
He told me he was using a counselor. I later discovered he had not even made an appointment.
He’s a liar.
When I got involved and the affair started being discussed, he got angry that he hadn’t been given enough time to sort through his issues before being harangued about the other woman.
He needed more time to eat cake. To avoid consequences at your expense. He’s painting himself the victim (harangued?). DARVO.
I was also told that investigating was pushing him toward her. Which is quite a magic trick: have an affair, then make the betrayed spouse responsible for making the affair more appealing by noticing it.
Yes, this is some RIC insanity. That reacting to gaslighting (pushing back against the narrative that there’s no affair and you’re crazy) actually creates affairs. HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR. You aren’t a time traveler. Your investigation into his behavior didn’t create or reinforce the behavior. He. Was. Engaging. In. An. Affair.
Someone please hit that marriage counselor with a rolled up newspaper. BAD THERAPY! Bad!
Stop comparing yourself to the affair partner.
I think maybe she is simply better for him. Maybe she is softer. More affectionate, more sexual, more fun. More admiring. Maybe he finally found the person he should have married.
Maybe she is. Maybe she matches his vapid self regard. Perhaps they are united in a love of Monopoly and fight over being the top hat. Maybe they have delightful evenings together eating her homemade tuna casserole, watching 90-Day Fiancé together. Or maybe she’s got active dating profiles and he has a h**ker habit. We have no idea.
His happiness or unhappiness doesn’t matter.
Because he is an UNACCEPTABLE partner. And you REJECT him.
The real issue is that you probably feel, quite rightly, that he doesn’t deserve happiness after what he’s done. That’s an injustice. And it is. Every day we must choke down the injustice of very undeserving people being rewarded for their sh*tty, unethical behavior. That is until the tribunals start.
The only answer I have to that is build your own life. Create a better future without him in it. Or your horrible in-laws.
But I’m terrified the story has now become: Mean Wife Abandons Poor Miserable Husband, and Wonderful Other Woman Sweeps In to Save Him.
You left HIM.
Well done. The only life saver here is you. You didn’t “abandon” him. He would’ve kept cheating on you. Instead you saved your own life.
The Other Woman sweeps in to clean up your garbage.
Reframe this today.
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Still Comparing,
You left your husband because you felt that the way that he was behaving was unacceptable to you. That is all that matters. As for your doubts you will, I hope, come to understand that you did not fail as a wife …. rather that he failed as a husband. And I be willing to bet that his and his AP’s “performative happiness” is just that …. a performance undertaken to try and control the narrative to their advantage.
Lastly, remember that nothing that you did pushed him towards his AP; he’s just trying to make you responsible for a decision that he had already made. Ex-Mrs LFTT made a similar accusation towards me. In her version of events there was no affair, but that my behaviour (AKA me holding her to account and correcting her lies) after she had left the kids and I drove the two of them together. Thankfully, no-one bought that BS for a second.
F*ck him, f*ck her and f*ck the horse they rode in on.
LFTT
Yes, toss him as a bad partner that you couldn’t trust. He’s someone who is willing to throw away history for the next shiny thing. In time, the shiny thing will be tarnished, and apparently she’s the type who may start looking around too. You don’t want to be part of that. Sure, they tell the shiny thing all kinds of lies and play the victim. That’s what they do.
Mine did that, and I ultimately decided to let go. I stood for fidelity and love in our marriage, and he did not. Given how the divorce went, I don’t think my kids and I meant much at all in the end to him. Well, that’s on him.
Now that you are free of this awful man, you have an opportunity for the next chapter of your life. Block him and his life, so you aren’t pulled back into thinking about him. Can you move away ?
Take a course, join a class, get out and meet new people. Build a life for a beautiful new chapter in your life. It takes time, but you will get there .
I second this. What were your favorite hobbies at 16? Take them up again.
A couple of years ago, I could have written this letter. Add about 18 additional years to the marriage and subtract the livestock.
Thanks, CL, for the reminder to reframe!
Still comparing – Some ruminating is evolutionary and unavoidable. It’s a trauma response. But you’ve also done a lot of critical analysis and you’re on the right tract.
You have far more information (curated and shared by a cruel husband) than many chumps ever get.
Look at his current actions. Adjust yours accordingly. Get a parenting app if you share minor children, no contact with his family. Put your ducks in a row during this critical (shh!) divorce planning.
Here’s your key, you said “things he used to ask me a long time ago”. You were with him for 17 years. In the beginning, I’ll wager things were “good”. He’s just back at the beginning stages again. I would put money on them being exactly where you are in 17 years (probably a lot less).
He’s a cheater who got with another cheater (a serial mate poacher, apparently). Whatever “happiness” they have, it’s not the happiness YOU want, is it? They probably are a better match than you and he are – because they are both cheaters, liars, and blame shifters. Nothing else matters. This isn’t a secure, healthy relationship. It’s not a relationship you would want. And if his family is blaming you rather than him – well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
You don’t have to be a perfect spouse to expect your partner stay faithful or end the relationship honestly. Don’t accept excuses from him or them.
Also just understand that what you see (“happy couple”, “intensly romantic”, etc.) is just what you SEE. The reality of their lives may be (probably is) very different. My FW and his AP, who had been together almost 5 years, were posting saccharine “I love you”s and “you’re wonderful” and photos of their little blended family UP UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE AP FLED TO ANOTHER STATE to get away from his abuse. My FW died, and I found out after that their relationship was mentally, emotionally, and physically abusive (on both sides – they were both volatile people with a lot of anger issues), they were both alcoholics, they were both on multiple medications for depression and anxiety, they were flat broke, AP had attempted suic!de, etc. Life for them was not at all what they portrayed to the public. And even if they are not plagued with problems (yet), I still doubt that you genuinely would ever want to be in their shoes.
Don’t compare yourself to her. She’s a cheater. He’s a cheater. Who cares if they are “happy”? I have a theory that a lot of cheaters who get together through cheating STAY together because they have to justify their actions by showing that they are “meant to be” and have such a wonderful love story. Otherwise, they look like absolute losers for breaking up their family (or families) for an affair.
Go make a fabulous life for yourself without your lying, cheating husband.
Most of the cheater couples I know stayed together so far. I just think 2 low life’s are content together. Sewage meets sewage. Chumps asked for the higher road that could not be delivered. I get nauseated thinking of both my cheaters and what they became…creepy old men now. I am so grateful not to be caring for either cheater as they developed dementia, obesity, prostate cancer, sagging everything, using blue pills and still ED, dribbling, snoring even creepier with young girls..NO THANK YOU!
Yes- and they’re not inflicting themselves on innocent folk if they stay in their own slimy lanes- a win for decent people.
I assume there was a good reason for you to be the one to move out of the marital home (with your kids?). I hope you have a good lawyer to lock down the finances, because if her first co-cheater died, who knows what will happen with second co-cheater (your ex). Sorry, I don’t mean to be alarmist, but the depths of their immorality can catch us by surprise if we’re not ready.
I have a friend whose husband left her for another cheater. They got married, and he ” mysteriously” died one day. The new ” wife” didn’t even bother to check on him, lol. Rumor has it that she had a part in his passing and I believe it.
I heard about a local case like that. No investigation because he had a host of documented medical problems, and his new love didn’t ask for that. But ya gotta wonder…widowed twice with sudden deaths?
Follow the money.
One thing this experience has taught me is that you cannot put anything past people who would lie and cheat as extensively as they do. The onset hypervigilance is both a gift and a curse.
I will remain hypervigilent the rest of my life but I am I’m therapy to calm down a few notches.
Same!
Tracy forgot to tell you to Trust That They Suck. Let me assure you that my FW is in an absolutely MISERABLE marriage with his AP. And his untreated alcoholism has had another 15 years to percolate. I hope the day comes soon when you realize that he did you a favor by detonating the marriage. Decenter him as soon as possible.
Anyone else here think “black widow” reading the bit about the AP being a serial mate poacher cheater with a ‘late husband’?
OP sometimes a sharky narc meets a meaner and even worse shark narc-sociopath. I think your ex H just met his match (made in he11) 🦈
I had that fleeting thought as well, but dismissed it thinking instead the mate poacher grabbed an older, wealthier man who died conveniently. But who knows? Meanwhile reading this comment and that from FYI earlier reminded me that my FW told me that 2 months into the affair (before D-Day) Mrs. Bendover had discussed with him the possibility of changing his life insurance beneficiary from me to her, and he thought it was a good idea. Like I’ve typed here before, brain tumor, aneurysm, mental breakdown…. it was crazy from start to finish.
Dear Still Comparing. Sending hugs to you. You didn’t fail as a wife. He failed as a husband. He spectacularly failed you when the Professional Mate Poacher came along, shiny and new and on the hunt. Don’t compare yourself to her..she is shallow. My xh’s father married his ap, they had two kids together. Yes their marriage lasted. But I don’t believe it was because they “belonged together”. I think it was because she kept him on the shortest leash ever; she made all the decisions, did the driving, operated the mobile phone. My xh and his brother NEVER got to spend time with their Dad alone (they were early mid teens at the time) even in to adulthood. The one time about 10 years ago they were visiting and somehow xh and his dad were in the car together without her, and his dad apologised for fuccquing up their lives. I think his dad stayed with her because… he’d made his bed so he lay in it. But he was a smart capable farmer builder type, but acquiesced to keep the peace. And not end up single. Nor dessert two more children.
My therapist told me “don’t think about her. It will end badly” [badly as in mentally and emotionally for me]. She was right. So do your best to not think of the fuccquers. Especially Little Miss Mate Poacher. She will probably turn up in your head uninvited. Just notice her there. And then show her the door. And slam it behind her!
(And thanks to a Chump National in a previous post for the fancy way of spelling the f-word.)
Apparently, he disregarded your boundaries while your kids were watching. Sounds like he was a really bad husband in more than one way. Please stop worrying about your “flaws” as a wife. You got this.
i agree with you, amelia.
i love being free of a grabbing X, as well as the sexual innuendoes. he was crude. it was gross. i feel free to my own space and am so much happier not to deal with it anymore.
Like FYI and Archer, I too wonder if the AP is as interested in the money as much as the man, and also question why you moved out of the marital home, and where the two kids are. Since you mentioned livestock and health problems, I am wondering if caring for them is one of the reasons you left, rather than him.
Please put your energy into getting a lawyer and locking down your financials. If the martial home was a burden, you may be free of that responsibility, but should retain a share in its value when you divide your assets.
Most of the hard work, effort and mental work of divorce comes at the beginning. Make sure a lawyer is there to take care of you and your kids financially. I doubt a serial mate poacher and cheater are the better parents.
It doesn’t sound like this man was worth this level of concern. You were ailing and struggling to keep yourself and the home you shared going and where was he? Out with friends (” “), and wherever else, forgetting that “in sickness” part of his vows. Funny how none of his side of the family seemed to pick up on this when they pointed their fingers at you. You are entitled to feel tapped out with all that you had been dealing with, and on top of that you generously gave him directions on how to help (I understand maybe needing to provide specifics, but having to wave your hands around and shout to your spouse for any kind of help when it’s obvious that it’s needed is just maddening) and he also chose to ignore this and blame you/let you accept the blame. Just…no. Like Tracy said, you left yourself out of this equation. What about your needs, or the family’s? How stellar you have been to put your all into your home and family when you were personally struggling while he was checked out and gallivanting instead of being your partner and a part of the home and family he helped to create (funny how they just seem to lose interest the way they do in things they were all for at some point in time). The other woman didn’t save him, she took out the trash. Also sounds like she’ll be having to stay healthy and available and dance for him for the rest of her days. They’re never better for the next one. Ex is on wife #3 (I was #1) after a string of women following the divorce. He can have whatever trophy he thinks he’s won.
Your ex sounds like my FW FIL who helped create the monster that is my exH narcopath. FW family also turned on me and effectively abandoned their only grandkids while peddling Image Management BS out of state.
Lots of FW FOO are a vipers nest of scorpions 🦂 🦂 🦂
You made the right move getting out of there. It might not seem like it yet, but it will.
I know how hard it is to NOT compare yourself to Schmoopie. (Gee, where does this all sound so familiar?)
What I keep seeing in your narrative is “Schmoopie got to ‘meet his needs while you did all of the heavy lifting’ in the marriage. And then you got stuck with the check.”
Did she save him from a bad marriage? No, she saved him from accountability.
And well, she’s about to get an education on what she actually saved him from, isn’t she?
I wonder how sexy their dynamic is going to be when she is the one that has to take point on running his life? I submit to you “not much.” I very much doubt that you leaving and no longer taking point on those things is going to motivate him to grow up. And if yours is not the first marriage she has played a part in ruining? I am excited for your follow up letter when you hit Tuesday and we find out he’s destitute and his kids aren’t speaking to him.
And anybody that would cheat WITH you would also cheat ON you. He will get his.
None of us were perfect partners. No, not one! That’s part of the point, though. “In sickness and in health.” We could just be some sort of automaton that meets somebody else’s needs without thinking about our own. Or setting boundaries and limits. That’s not marriage, though. Or life, for that matter.
Instead of getting respect when we said “no”, we got gaslit. We got hurt. We get betrayed. Instead of what we deserved-to be seen, to be heard, and to be given grace.
Your answer when more needed to be done was to step it up. His answer was to run away. I repeat: you did well to leave. Frankly. I wish I did.
And seriously? To hell with his family. They tacitly permit there to be a homewrecker in the equation. They can be as mad as they want. Their idiot kid betrayed you. Your obligation to him and them is over. They’re going to be a lot madder at you when there isn’t someone to clean up his messes. But that is no longer your concern.
My Traitor did the same sort of thing-gave my love away in front of me, had the same conversations we used to have with Schmoopie while I was running the house and grinding away at work. I famously got diagnosed with diabetes and she asked for an open relationship the next day. It was apparently completely OK and expected that I take her to PT and her appointments and oncology and change how I cook and behave and things for the duration of us living together but as soon as my endocrine system had said “no mas” she was no longer being subtle about looking for a better deal. Which it turns out was not sustainable.
From what I understand their relationship did not last long after I went No Contact. That seems to happen a lot when they no longer “have to escape” and it turns out that they were human filth to begin with. Or have somebody cleaning up after them or making sure that they eat.
I repeat: he will get his. You got out. Stay out. Work on you. I am at just shy of three years since my D-Day and I haven’t been this happy in YEARS-and that includes with that idiot.
Have a Mighty Monday!
Wait, Traitor asked for an open relationship THE DAY AFTER YOU WERE DIAGNOSED WITH DIABETES? Oh my goodness, Jeff, I’m so sorry. That’s so vile.
I completely agree with you on this – cheaters always forget about the “in sickness and in health” vow. It always ends up being “in my sickness and in your health.” There’s a reason nurses tell women to prepare for divorce when they’re diagnosed with cancer. Still Comparing went through so much, still tried to be a good wife and mother, and he abandons her when she starts telling him she needs help with the household. As you said, he wasn’t saved from a bad marriage. He was saved from accountability. And Schmoopie and FW will probably learn the hard way, but even if they don’t, FW was awful to Still Comparing and doesn’t deserve her.
Yup! I was melting down about it (was never pre-diabetic, never threw bad bloodwork, etc, was not in the right head space for a life change) and she made the whole thing about her. Wasn’t supportive at all, told me it was because I was doing things wrong. I said “no, work on the relationship you have” as her pitch was “it will make the relationship stronger” which she did not substantiate apart from “I will find someone that will give me what I want” as she already had someone lined up. Crit fail on the delivery for certain. If I had more of a spine back then I would have ended it before it got ugly and I made a fool of myself pick-me dancing. Alas.
During D-Day I called her straight out on the timing as “hoping I’d be too weak to say no”; she denied that was her intention and had said that she had been working up to it and “didn’t see a better time.” Never ran it back.
Funny you bring up the “prepare for divorce on diagnosis” thing-she had a negative medical outcome pretty early into our cohabitation and got really weird and distant. It came out in the wash it was because she went on Reddit(you know, the pulsating nucleus of negativity and hatred on the Internet) and saw people’s husbands leaving them over it. Apparently my “5 hours a week of direct care for said ailment” didn’t rate. I get my diagnosis? All that. She made no effort to understand. I have by and at large taken that health journey alone.
When trouble starts? Traitors look for higher ground. We Chumps run toward the screaming and lean in when we get there.
Still Comparing, PLEASE do not compare yourself to this wh*re. She’s a loser, he’s a loser, and they completely deserve each other. If I had a Super Power, it would be sticking all cheaters with each other, for eternity. No escape clause, lol. Together 4 eva.
Ooooh, chump super powers. My super power would be to magically give every chump proof of the cheating so they don’t have to wonder or worry for ages while staying! Irrefutable cheating evidence would be so helpful for breaking chumps out of the gaslighting cycle.
You simply cannot compare a long marriage to the excitement of a fantasy driven new relationship. Of course they can give each other all that lovey dovey stuff- for now. It won’t look like this years down the road. Everybody has problems, so their relationship is not going to be problem free. Your FW has decided he will just bail when life (and his partner) gets too real. He wants to live on Fantasy Island. So you can expect him to do it to her when the fantasy turns sour, and it will.
Gawd, the two of them talk like moronic teenagers. They are emotionally immature and they are gross.
Edited to add; chemistry is cheap. They are cheap. Do not mistake simple chemistry for depth of feeling. Chemistry is piffle for rom-coms. Long term relationships require a solid foundation of shared values, goals and true partnership. Based on what you say about how checked out he was from family life, there never was a true partnership. He’s incapable of one because he’s fundamentally selfish.
“I was not a perfect wife. I got overwhelmed, I got angry, I complained, I didn’t always want sex. And I didn’t like being grabbed in front of the kids. Sometimes intimacy felt like one more demand when I was already depleted.”
This right here was all the red flags about him. He sounds frankly bordering on predatory for dismissing your sexual boundaries and needs. I wouldn’t want to be sexually grabbed in front of kids either! It feels gross, objectifying, and demeaning. Was he expressing power and control over you by doing this? Sound like it to me.
Also, being overwhelmed, angry, and complaining are human emotions. Sounds like he wouldn’t let you be human and then blamed you for everything because you weren’t just perfectly submissive and pleasing to him at all times. That is no way to live! One has to be allowed to be fully human at home.
And his family blaming you for it all really gives insight into his entitlement and abusive qualities. This whole situation is a mess and I beleive you will feel so much better and more confident and comfortable once you can free yourself from this circus.
I agree. There were so many red flags here. But I don’t blame her for not seeing them as a big deal at the time (not saying you are blaming her, just musing on a lot of responses I see to situations like this one). “When you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like… flags” is a quote that I once heard, and it applies to a lot of chumpdom, I feel like.
I think this inappropriate grabbing is one of the odd details you don’t realize is an FW thing until you read it here. No kids but my ex (who struggled to be genuinely romantic and intimate in ways I craved) would grab me like that in front of friends and family. Once he grabbed my breasts and honked in front of his best friend, and we just laughed it off but I was mortified. Also conditioned/gaslighted to take it as no big deal, or a show of affection in some twisted way. He’d make joking comments about hiring me out as a wet nurse, which was especially cruel since I wanted kids and it was an unresolved issue for us. He was (intentionally, I believe) slovenly and dirty around me, so I did not feel inclined toward intimacy with him (well, because of that and lots of other mind effery). So it was my fault our sex life dwindled? Rather than internalizing and essentially taking responsibility for nearly all our “relationship problems,” I should have left — long before ddays. None of this was acceptable, and while the shame shouldn’t be mine, it’s still hard to come to terms with what I accepted for so many years.
Oh jeez; I am so sorry to hear about all of that! The public breast honking would have destroyed me.
I think any reasonable adult with a sense of decency doesn’t want to be grabbed and groped in front of their children. There’s something wrong with him if he thinks that’s remotely appropriate.
Song parody time. To the tune of Elton John’s Someone Saved My Life Tonight 😁
When I think of those beastly fights
Your late nights and guarded phone
Little lies and sharky stare
Stupid skinny jeans and thinning hair
Like the Lord of Chaos lurking in your Pornhub lair
And it’s one more Meh and we don’t fear you anymore
I thought I’d go stark raving
But friends all think
You’re a greasy weasel and manwh*re
(ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…)
Sidepiece saved my life outright
Home-wrecker (home-wrecker)
Thank God she got her fangs in you
And STDs
She’s fully welcome to your mess
And cantankerous slobbishness
You’re a stray mutt shedding fleas
While she’s a black widow
Arachnids are about your speed
So leave me be
And FW-free
Buh-bye
(ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…)
Never realized this captor bond that passed for fond
Was just a cage but made of styrofoam
A Stockholm syndrome Thunderdome
I’m tapping out, don’t wait up, dude I won’t be home
It’s four AM but I was out by ten
Damn it’s good to sleep again
My health improves each day
You’ve been away
So grateful that I didn’t stay
(aah-aah-aah-aah-aah…)
Sidepiece saved my life outright
Home-wrecker (home-wrecker)
Thank God you landed in her web
Black widow
She’s got you swathed and paralyzed
“Envenomation” is the term, and liberty
Is calling me
You’re such a bore
Not missing your
Bullsh*t or
Coercive control
Super Bowl
F*ckity Bye
(ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…)
Sidepiece saved my life outright
SIdepiece saved my life outright…
Stockholm Syndrome Thunderdome! 😄 Great stuff.
🤫Don’t forget coercive control Superbowl.
It doesn’t really matter if she “saved him.” (She didn’t.) Because what’s more important is you are now saved from a liar and a cheater.
Maybe they are better matched, but why would you care about two horrible people being a good match? You don’t want to be a match for an awful person. He’s a lying, manipulative, selfish cheater and she’s…a lying selfish manipulative cheater too.
You don’t fit him because you’re not.
I remember feeling the same sense of injustice after a very abusive cheating ex left me and went (very) public with his new girlfriend. I felt angry that everyone just happily welcomed her, how he was constantly posting about her (he had told me not to tag him in anything and wouldn’t put me on his social media.) I thought why does he get to treat me like this and get all the happiness?!
Because he’s a POS. And so is she. A story of true love didn’t happen. Two horrible people found each other and they’re flouncing around like fools because they don’t care who they hurt. And I thought…why would I want that? In order to be a good fit for him I would have to be as vapid and selfish as he is and I just don’t.
It’s the same thing here. You shouldn’t care about whether they’re happy or not because they’re both garbage people playing in their trash. I don’t think you would like dumpster diving.
This letter was so well written and descriptive!! CL answer and the picture of a drowning victim going down- priceless. I so appreciate such insightful answers from CL and understand completely the despair of loss x2
I studied up on drowning victims and sometimes the lifeguard( chump) trying to save someone, and that person is trying to hold on to the lifeguard– chump–, taking him down also..sometime the chump has to kick the cheater away and let them experience life without you. No contact. So that not both of you get sucked into the empty void. Let the cheater be happy, you be happier, let the cheater post pictures and compare- you compare freedom to being a slave of a disturbed mind. You make a new life and don’t compare. It.DOES. NOT .MATTER. You are free of the bubonic plague. Sewage seeks its own level. OW are being selected by men that are low lifes. You are quality …high end…Let the creep go and you please learn to stop comparing gold to rusted rebar. You are priceless and worthy of far better.
Let’s get a couple of things straight-
YOU did not hide your apparent dissatisfaction while leading your partner to believe all was well.
YOU did not fuck someone else instead of valuing and doing the work to repair your marriage and relationship.
YOU did not lie and cheat.
The problem isn’t you and this other woman is enabling yet another horrible man and listening to his bullshit about how hard done by he was- same goes for his arsehole family .
It’s unfair and wrong on the surface but some people get the relationship they deserve while freeing people like you from eternity with a twat.
It can be a long game but honestly you will come out the winner.
I hope Still Comparing takes this to heart, Tracy!
And thank you for this: “Every day we must choke down the injustice of very undeserving people being rewarded for their sh*tty, unethical behavior. That is until the tribunals start.”
Yes, that’s priceless.
My older attorney shared with me the general outlines of several of his cases in which justice was obtained without the law. In one case, they had signed the agreement, but it had just gone to the judge when the STBX was in a horrible car accident and passed. In my state, that meant that the matter was withdrawn, and his client became a widow. And that was all-around better than being divorced.
All these comments – so good.
For me, 10 years later, one of the important lessons from Tracy that I still have to work to hold onto, is Trust That They Suck. My ex didn’t marry the AP (she is married with three kids and on a different coast), but he married a local someone he met (while still with the AP, I might add. Phone records were a useful tool). The new wife is very, very shiny and her CV looks great. Fast forward a few years and all the crap is coming out. How the new wife was told to leave her job and in fact did not retire), how the ‘happy new couple’ argues a lot, how bossy she is. And with time I’ve received many unsolicited comments from people who feel sorry for my ex.
It can take a long time for the truth to come out, but trust that it does.
Similar to how that incredible French woman, whose husband was inviting men to r*pe her while she was drugged, has said she has no shame . . . that is my hope, that the narrative will change and that people will come to realize that the shame lies elsewhere.
*Does* Andrew Tate wear capris?! If no, sheer inventive genius. If so, equally effing hilarious. Oh and the Monopoly top hat! Plus some dead serious, dead on wisdom. You killed today, CL.
He was arrested in them. Check it out;
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/andrew-tate-arrest-outfit-meme-asda-tristan-miami-b3018545.html
Am I missing something here? I’m not seeing all this extra detail about this OP’s story that y’all are! “Moving out of the house…two kids…etc.”.
“We have two children” but I didn’t see anything about OP moving out. Just that FW moved in right away with the OW.
I’ll bet all betrayed people go down Blame Avenue. Hope you end up on Reality Road sooner rather than later. My ex and Schmoops have separated and reconciled several times. He apparently asks our kids about me all the time. Yes, ME. The horrible woman that sent him seeking solace in another woman’s vagina, resting his weary head on her surgically inflated pillows. Are they more suited to each other? Maybe. Maybe not. All I do know is I was a class act during our marriage – not perfect, but I didn’t need to be as none of us are. What he wasn’t is the same class act. I deserved more, deserved better. Our kids deserved more, deserved better. I deserved a husband engaged & participatory in our imperfect marriage & family. He didn’t do that, so he’s a low class POS as far as I’m concerned. I stick my nose up in the air at the thought of either of them. Try it, it works👍I’m not fooled by any happy pictures, or “live, laugh, love” signs posted on their gate (yes really 😂)or if they stay together until they croak. I trust that they suck. Hallelujah. Amen. Meh.
Dear sister,
You’re facing a real trial, a real challenge in very unfavorable environment. But neither I nor the other members of this community doubt for a second that you will not only cope, but also win.
Alas, we often associate our lives and hopes for the future with the wrong people, because they know how to hide their dirty nature for a long time. They openly become who they really are when fate (or God) throws temptation at them.
Decent people resist temptation because they think first of all about those who depend on them, but scoundrels like your husband are looking for an excuse to follow the easiest and most pleasant path for them.
Thomas Huxley once said that after living his life, he realized that in our world, in the end, evil does not triumph, and virtue is not punished. And that’s the real truth.
You have a long life ahead of you, many difficulties and many true joys, because you have those who will never betray, your children. Maternal happiness cannot be compared with the “happiness” of cheaters, it is even ridiculous to compare them.
I am a man, moreover, I am an old-fashioned man, and I have beliefs about what a real man should be like, how he should behave with his family, with his wife and children, what role he should play as a husband and father. So, your husband is a pathetic imitation of the real man you deserve. And I know he’s a disgrace to our gender.
Let him go, let them go and take care of what’s really important to you and the kids.
You’re going to be fine.
But I doubt his future very much.