How Did Your Cheater Risk Your Health?
The Friday Challenge topic is cheaters as health risks. In that “quest for aliveness” and “exuberant defiance” (affairs) what gambles did they take with your health?
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Earlier this week I had the honor of interviewing Eileen McGill Fox for the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast. She’s the mightiest of the mighty. Eileen could be any chump here.
For over 30 years her husband had a double life.
Cheating with men, mostly seggs workers. She had no idea. He appeared to be a committed family man and they had four children together. Thanks to his wandering dick, Eileen contracted a virulent strain of HPV16, which resulted in cervical, vulvar, and anal cancer for her. (Not him.)
She’s still fighting the cancer. And him — they’re still finalizing a divorce. Eileen’s has bravely gone public with her story because she got an affidavit from him about his double life. Her cancer doctors also offered their medical opinion that this exposure came solely from him. (HPV can be dormant in your system for years, yes, but apparently not 30 years and not this virulent a strain.)
Next to death, the cure sounds worse than the disease. Eileen goes into some very personal detail about what this has done to her body. (Which I cannot share here because of AI censor bots.) But she’s talking anyway:
I knew two things when I found this out. One, that I would not be quiet about it. And two, that I was not to blame for any of his behaviors.
Eileen MCGill Fox
She’s shouting it from the rooftops:
Infidelity is domestic abuse.
Eileen does not shy away from this message. She pulls zero punches. She told me her husband could’ve shot her and done less damage to her body than what she’s been through. His selfish decisions permeate her life every single day.
And yet no one talks about how cheaters endanger our health when they make unilateral risks to have affairs. No, instead the narrative is focused on cheaters “unmet needs” or romanticized by nitwits like Esther Perel who calls infidelity “exuberant acts of defiance” and “quests for aliveness.”
You know what’s exuberant? HPV16. You know who’s nearly un-alive? Eileen Mc Gill Fox.
But she’s fighting back by helping others.
The fact that I know her story at all, or you do now, is because Eileen threw herself into raising awareness about cancer and HPV.
Because she was a health advocate, she allowed herself to be FILMED getting a butt screening by the Tampa Bay Times. Literally laying it all bare. And she didn’t shy away telling reporters about how she got this cancer.
The Tampa Bay story then got picked up by People magazine “Woman Diagnosed with Vulvar, Cervical and Anal Cancer After Learning Her Husband of 30 Years Had Cheated on Her.”
As far as I know, this is the FIRST time a major media headline has ever linked an STI outcome for a chump to a cheater. Kudos to that editor at People magazine for framing it this way!
Yes, Eileen framed it that way first, but how often are these stories erased or glossed over? It’s a bit hard to both-siderism HPV16.
But Eileen isn’t alone. She’s just unique and brave for talking about it. So, today’s Friday Challenge question is:
How did your cheater risk your health?
Meanwhile, Eileen would like us to raise awareness about these STIs and get vaccinated. So…
What you need to know about the HPV vaccine:
- It prevents 90 percent of all genital cancers.
- It’s effective even if you’ve already had HPV.
- Insanely, most insurance does not cover it for women over 45. (EXPLAIN THIS TO ME, PATRIARCHY!)
- HPV is not part of STI screenings. For women, to be screened, you need a Pap smear. So, please, get your Pap smears!
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Well, for starters, I had a full hysterectomy last fall due to something my cheater ex gave me. Then there are the years of depression and sadness. And top it with the ongoing triggers and panic attacks when he involves our adult children in his dirty life. I left him years ago, but the weight lingers in my heart and soul.
How terrible. I’m sorry.
This is an interesting one. While I don’t think that Ex-Mrs LFTT risked my physical health (she had been actively withholding intimacy for over a year before her infidelity was exposed) during her affair, there were significant other health-related impacts that arose from her actions.
Her lies, manipulation, gaslighting and generally entitled and unpleasant behaviour during the run up to her infidelity being discovered, as well as afterwards had a massive and negative effect on my mental health, as well as our three childrens’ (they were 11, 16 and 18 at the time) mental health. All four of us have required therapy at some point to help us come to terms with what she did to us, and two of the children started self-h*rming and one (thankfully unsuccessfully) attempted sui*ide. Thankfully all four of us are in a better place now, but it has taken a lot of work to get there … and it’s not thanks to Ex-Mrs LFTT.
I guess the advice that I would give to any Chump is that of course they should think about the physical risks that your Cheater has exposed you too … but that no Chump (or child of a Chump) should take the mental health angle for granted.
LFTT
My heart goes out to Eileen and her family. Her story is so much a “you think you had it bad with your cheater?” story, and that things can ALWAYS be worse. I hope she survives all of this, and thrives, and kicks her stupid FW XH’s butt into the next millennium!🤬
That being said, like LFTT said, my FW XW ended up doing more to me physically through my mental and emotional distress from her betrayal and awful actions than anything else directly physical.
Not that I didn’t point out to her how she potentially exposed me to STI’s from her sh*tty (I’m really getting p*ssed off at Google’s/America’s need to censor everybody. Curse you, Google! And the Red Baron, too, of course).
There was a fun moment when I got to announce at a public health center exactly why we were there to get temporary Medicaid coverage due to the FW XW losing her job after she and her FW AP of a boss announced their affair to their workplace (he was the chancellor of the state college system for our New England state between 2015 to around 2020, and she was the tart secretary; sorry, tart Adminstrative Assistant he inherited when he took the job 🙄🤢🤮).
Together, the FW XW and I had for the last few years agreed that the FW XW had the better insurance for the family, so we were all under her insurance when she had her affair and it came to light, and then we were all NOT insured when she lost her job due to the affair coming to light (it seems the FW XW and her scummy AP boss agreed during the affair, and of course unknown to me, that she would be the one to take the fallout after they admitted to their workplace about their affair, because he made the big bucks. Isn’t that an action just dripping with concern for the welfare of her spouse and children?🤬).
So, when we applied temporarily for Medicaid after she got the boot job-wise, I was very loud explaining that one of the first things I would be using the Medicaid health insurance for was to make sure she hadn’t passed on any STI’s to me.
The FW XW had tried to calm me previously about the STI scariness that I brought up as a possible result of her awful behavior, saying it was so unlikely, because he was married for forty years, so I should just not worry so much!😳🙄
I’m a pharmacist by training, and I told the stupid, delusional FW XW that she had no guarantee that she was his only f*ck-meat (I didn’t say that then, but that’s what pops in my head now), not to mention neither I nor she (nor he, really!) knew what his wife of forty years may have exposed us to (now I think it’s unlikely to be anything, but at the time, WTF did I or any of us truly know? 🫣).
She was a bit mortified when I spoke out loudly/publicly about that at the health center. My feeling then and now was TOUGH SH*T, scumbag.
But, everything turned out ok for me. Although, now I’m not sure if I was tested for HPV. I simply told my PCP to give me the works for STI screening, and trusted him to do so.
Anyway, my empathy is with Eileen, LFTT, and all my fellow chumps here. These FW’s never considered the sh*t they were raining down on us by dint of their scummy, extremely selfish actions. Is it any wonder we could care less what happens to them now?
My father’s alcoholism and infidelity definitely had a strong effect on me. To the point where I never married or had children. I was afraid of picking a bad life partner, and I was afraid of passing on my dad’s crazy substance abusing genes.
I’m so sorry Daughterofachump. He stole so much of your life from you. You lost a great deal. I hope you have other close and supportive relationships in your life now. X
100%. I am in exactly the same situation and the last three years with the cheater were hell – verbal abuse, gaslighting, extreme anxiety – I just did not know what was causing all of these and I thought I WAS THE PROBLEM. Thankfully it is all over
Chumpydumpy,
I hope that you’ve been able to access Mental Health support. I managed to get a really good therapist through my employer; they were quite literally a life saver.
Good luck to you.
LFTT
My story is relatively tame compared to this poor woman’s horrible cancer.
When I first found out about FW cheating, I went and sobbed to my doctor and got ALL the tests for anything they can test. Everything was negative except – HBV! Which was a BIG surprise because I was vaccinated (with follow-up titer to prove success) for that 15+ years ago during my lab career working with bloodborne pathogens. This led to a whole goose chase of retesting with multiple labs and a visit to an infectious disease specialist to find out my HBV vaccine had waned and I was no longer immune, but apparently not infected either. Errant lab result? We don’t know. It was negative in 3 other labs. But this was not a fun journey, and at least it broke the spell of the hysterical bonding.
I will, for the rest of my life, feel extreme stress leading up to my yearly OBGYN appointment knowing that HPV could pop up at any time. My insurance only covers testing for that every 3 years, and I insist on yearly, so I will be paying a minimum of $100 every 2/3 visits for the rest of my life as well. Thanks, FW.
Me too
And don’t forget the indirect risks to health – stress, loss of insurance, loss of rides home from outpatient procedures, etc.
And a mass of Autoimmune diseases too…undercurrent from cheaters
He gave me four STDs. But he never admitted to it, and tried to convince me that I got them from a toilet seat or maybe I was the cheater. I had to get a hysterectomy. In the end it was breathtaking how little he cared.
My god! So sorry you went through this.
Four? OMG. He deserves prison.
My FW insisted I’d had it since before I’d married him, which was decades in the past.
Right. Because that makes SO much sense.🙄🤬 Scarysherry, I hope he gets leprosy and his dick falls off. The scummy b*stard.
It really is scary how a FW’s selfishness will easily push any caring/remorseful response aside so they can try to maintain a lack of responsibility and consequences for their awful actions towards their spouse/partner and children.
There’s an article published here how Schmoopie virtue signaled about her cervical cancer from hpv. I’m also in the hysterectomy club due to hpv and my body’s inability to effectively fight it after being through separate cancer treatments. I had never tested positive for it until the divorce. While I can’t prove it, the timing and my outcome are less than reassuring of my ex’s innocence of this harm.
My ex was very covert until the discard/end. While I was pregnant with our second child, after a devastating miscarriage, he tried to serve me raw poultry that had been prepared to look cooked. He left raw pork drippings across countertops and blew up when called out on it. During my first pregnancy he had behaved as doting, careful, a partner. During the last one he refused to clean the cat litter, would dump messes anywhere I had cleaned, and shut doors on me if I was using any harsh chemicals. Those are just a few examples of the physical harm or attempts to harm I experienced while pregnant. In texts to schmoopie, there is word salad evidence that it was part of his calculations in leaving.
Looking back, I recognize many more harmful incidents cloaked as caring from earlier in the marriage. Trying to serve me red colored broth before a surgery, grabbing me and swinging me to the side repeatedly after a spinal health issue had been found, sleep deprivation, speaking over me at my doctor and attempting to get me to take frequent painkillers, adding known migraine triggers to my foods, the list goes on. The kids were never immune to it, either. I’m not even delving into the financial, stress, emotional, and mental abuses despite how they also affect health.
Not very exuberant of me, I know.
Good Lord. Your FW XH sounds like another candidate for my leprosy cursed brigade!🤬
I’m so, so sorry you had to put up with that evil troll, CAB. And I hope you and your kids are managing to survive and hopefully thrive without that scumbag around. Lots of love and hugs to you all.
My ex sabotaged the house before and after he left (he was allowed to do an inventory by court order) in what were clear attempts to cause accidents that would kill me and tween. On D-Day, while I was lying unconscious from his beating, he told tween he should have thrown me down the stairs and killed me.
In prior years, he had kicked me “in his sleep.” Amazing how the only times he kicked in his sleep, he managed to hit either my knee or my ankle hard enough so I couldn’t walk for a year or more from each injury.
I believe it was OHFFS who called my ex a monster. It’s so gratifying when someone acknowledges the truth about them. A minister also said my ex was a monster. It was an incredible relief to hear that said.
You ex behaved as an incredibly cruel monster, and still is one. He actively tried to harm you and also tried to cause a lifetime of pain, suffering and disability to his own unborn child. I hope he didn’t cause the prior miscarriage.
Monster! That’s horrifying. It helps to confirm my theory that many FWs hate us so much they want us dead, as do other stories on this blog of FWs who tried to poison their chumps.
If he had managed to give you toxoplasmosis from the cat litter, you might have had a badly damaged infant or even a stillbirth. What an evil person!
We even had a pretty new cat in the home. The risk of it was very real.
We were trying for our child after the miscarriage. It was such a confusing, sad, and stressful time before I discovered what had really been going on. He even tried to convince me and our preschooler to give our baby a middle name that was the first name of his ap’s child. There truly is no floor.
I appreciate the cheating-is-abuse message because it’s been something that’s taken me a long time to understand. My ego refused to acknowledge that I was in an ‘abusive’ relationship. Lies don’t have the same visual impact as black eyes.
My ex was diagnosed with HPV positive oral cancer within a year of our separation. The ‘it can lie dormant for years’ line really irks me because I don’t think it was a coincidence that he was diagnosed with HPV cancer after adding more partners to his line-up. The multiple partners as a risk factor’ message needs to be amplified. No surprise that he got it after becoming a human Petri dish.
That being said, Eileen having the cancer is so wrong. Her smile and attitude . . . she is one amazing woman.
My first husband DIED of an HPV related oral cancer 25 years after we split. I suspect his reckless conduct continued.
It needs to be stressed that EVEN IF your cheater ” only had” one main OW —that OW can be a public person and give you, the wife, more than you know. I don’t like how we say ONLY ONE and think that is safer? My first cheater had ONLY ONE for the 3 years he was cheating, but she was a motorcycle gal before him( I like motorcycles to look at)and was of use to multiple others before she found THE ONE love of her life in my husband. Never, ever ever feel safe with a cheater. NEVER
I cannot remember the specific number attached to my HPV diagnosis, but it was so virulent that I required surgery within 6 months, and then was gifted with 6 month check ups for the rest of my life. That’s bad, but what bothers me most is the fact that schmoopie had absolutely terrible skin. I thought it was acne. It was not. FW seems to have passed on an additional HPV, one that causes tiny, rough warts on most of my skin surfaces. I always prided myself on my lovely complexion. That went right out the door with FW, as a result of his actions. I absolutely hate these tiny constant reminders of his skin against her body. I fight daily to keep my skin from looking like schmoopie’s. There aren’t bad enough curse words to express my loathing for the pair of them.
I’m so so sorry. The physical reminders truly are so hard. I wish the laws would catch up because these are real damages to daily life that none of us gave informed consent to the risk.
It’s now known that domestic violence and coercive control and the stress and very special depth of despair they cause can severely compromise the immune system and increase risks of not only infectious illness but cancer and autoimmunity.
That may be how some of these creeps manage to pass on serious or deadly infections yet not succumb themselves– because (according to more research findings) bullying apparently has the perk of boosting bullies’ immune systems and lowering inflammation while doing the exact reverse in victims.
Turns out there’s actually a method to the madness: since “status” in the animal world is really a relative thing (having more of it than someone else) and therefore largely subjective or illusory, this means that engineering it so that someone has less status than you and you have comparatively more than them– as artificial as it is– still has a real physiological perks and consequences. But I imagine this only works for individuals who are basically pretty unreflective and “animalistic” to start with in the sense that they can derive pleasure from sadistic or predatory acts and have an on/off switch for empathy. Otherwise the guilt of torturing intimate partners would simply cause more stress for normal people.
In the ex-husband-paid-for-sex chump group as well. I made him get tested when we were in limbo (whether he did or not, I don’t know – he told me he did and was fine, but he’s a known liar and so much of that time was a fog). I didn’t test until I was out on my own and divorced. My GP seemed to be mad on my behalf and on top of making sure I was appropriately screened. Thank god nothing came back, but earlier in our relationship I had some of my cervix burned to address an odd looking result from a pap smear, and some time following this panel had to go to a specialist to further examine possible exposure to Hep-C (was thankfully ruled either cleared or a fluke with the bloodwork). At one point while we were married, he had some sort of weird ooze coming out of the tip of his d*ck and I was so trusting and unaware of his behavior that I was worried for his health and suggesting he talk with a doctor. I remember among the first questions I asked of him after finding out about this insanity were did he at least wear condoms…but of course know now who knows what to believe when trying to find out the truth from a lying liar who lies. I am forever paranoid that something will come up at some point in my life because of his clandestine activities. Although I’m at meh which much of what he did, risking my health keeps a part of me so angry and hoping that his d*ck will fall off. Honestly, what the f*ck are any of them thinking?! (I know, I know…they’re not.)
Let me count the ways…
My mental, emotional, psychological health was nuked.
I’m still repairing that damage, eight years post DDay. That’s a wound that will likely need periodic cleaning for the rest of my life.
I managed to avoid contracting genital heroes for my entire 54 years of life until regrettably I engaged in post DDay pick me dance sex.
If you can’t resist having sex with them post DDay, DO NOT have unprotected sex.
Farrah Fawcett died from anal cancer. Ryan O’Neal cheated on her.
I’ll bet there’s a link.
I also contracted herpes doing the pick me dance. The gift that keeps on giving.
In my case, I am luckily STI-free. But the level of stress he put me through, and still sometimes does is extreme.
I see lot of data saying that stress can cause severe health problems like cancer and autoimmuinue issues later on down the line. That concerns me.
One of my kid’s deals wth horrific anxiety.
And I think I am probably really lucky that I am STI-free. We once had a conversation pre-D-Day. We were talking about sex workers. (I really wish I remembered more, like WHY we were talking about this at all) But we got into a bit of an argument because I was under the impression that most sex workers probably used condoms. He said they probably don’t.
So…ya know how sometimes us chumps remember something much later and it is such a red flag in hindsight, but in the moment we just didn’t connect it?
Well here is my dum dum moment. He got really angry when I implied that only an idiot would go without a condom while having sex with a pro. I insisted, “well if she let’s one guy go without, she likely is letting many go without, and given that her job is sex, she is probably sleeping with lots of men. The risk factor is going to be higher due to her numbers AND the added risk of not using anything”. I know that for example, actors in adult films get tested regularly and escorts may as well. But if you are having a lot of unprotected sex with lots of people testing is not going to be a magic shield.
And he was so mad at me for saying that! And my dumb ass didn’t question that at all at the time.
In hindsight, I assume sex workers were on the menu and that at least sometimes, condoms weren’t.
Those hindsight realizations are awful, aren’t they? Once after a scene in something we were watching on Netflix involved a sex worker, FW said to me, with a very bitter tone to his voice, “I don’t think hookers even actually like having sex” and at the time I thought it was an odd thing to say and an even odder thing to sound upset about. How little I knew.
It’s important to find a supportive doctor.
Five years into my marriage, I had to go to the emergency room with a mystery infection. I got given antibiotics and pushed out the door. A decade later I was in my doctor’s office with sores and my FW telling me that “Well, it’s probably just stress”.
I was faithful for 18 years. It wasn’t stress.
Another member of the HPV club here, also no chance it was anyone other than FW. Despite having evidence the OW was wildly promiscuous, the cretin did not wrap the sausage. I have cervical lesions which so far have been benign, but have to be monitored.
I would go even further than saying it’s abuse. My theory is that there is murder in the heart of many FWs who do not at least use condoms. It may just be a subconscious hope that they infect us, but it’s there. They hate us so much that they’re even willing to infect themselves to destroy us. They hate us because we could not fill their emptiness like they hoped we could. They will grow to hate any partner in time for that reason. I will allow that in some cases they are just hopelessly stupid and ignorant about STIs as well as callously indifferent to any harm they could potentially cause. I think my FW was mostly the latter type, but am not certain he doesn’t also have murderous fantasies.
All cheaters damage the health of their spouses and their children, it is just a matter of degree.
I ended up with Complex PTSD that is disabling and prevents me from working. Most days I have at least one episode of going to the fear place, where my heart pounds and my mouth goes dry, my hands shake, and I feel utter panic. This is followed by feeling frozen and unable to do anything. I used to be a resilient person who handled stress well, was optimistic, outgoing, warm and social, loved travel and new places and adventures. I miss that woman. The death threats after years of previous abuse pretty much destroyed her. Like most women who were married to transvestites, I gained > 100 pounds, They don’t even research health consequences of people married to “trans” men anymore, because it is too politically controversial and the effects too shocking. We’re invisible.
These men (and women) damage us in every way: emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. And it doesn’t stop with divorce: it takes many of us years to heal, even with good therapy. If you are older, you will likely never recover financially.
This is why I think that when infidelity is involved, a fair split of assets is more like 65/35 in favor of the innocent spouse. That would probably end up about break even after you subtract the consequence costs like therapy, ongoing medical supervision, extra lab tests, and direct financial loss.
Children whose parents are divorced have a harder time of life, socially, scholastically and in relationship, statistically speaking. Their chances of getting divorced are increased. We all know that some will model the cheater parent’s behavior, and crash their marriages and children’s lives in a generational cycle. (And no, that is not advice to stay, it is advice to leave the instant you find out, and lessen the damage.) It is not divorce per se that causes these issues…in my view they are largely the consequence of having a disordered parent and another who has to deal with a disordered person and the unequal burdens inflicted by family court.)
Women in my RIC group session started getting cancer diagnoses about a year after Dday. The human body (and mind, heart and soul) are not designed for this kind of beabuse, for one’s self, and even less so towards the children.
Hpv 16 for me as well. FW claiming reactivation of latent virus from someone else 10 years or more before we married.
At the time I gave him the Chumpy benefit of the doubt.
I ultimately divorced him for something else 10 years later.
I now know that the question I was obsessed with: “did FW cheat on me”? wasnt the right question. The right question was: is potential cheating the only abusive behavior?
Had i asked that, I woukd not have wasted another 10 years or more of my life.
I ultimately divorced him for something else that was outrageous.
Do I now think he cheated on me when I got hpv and a resultant, high-grade cervical lesion? Absolutely! And ive reclassified all of his female friends and other women he mentioned over the years as APs.
SAME. I have reclassified all the stories he told me involving women. And, to be honest, they make much more sense when considering the fact that he was most likely propositioning or having relations with them.
Eileen if you’re reading this, you are so mighty! You remind me of my grandma, also named Eileen, who was also very mighty – she divorced a cheater in the early 70s in a very traditional Irish Catholic community. I will honor your story by spreading the word on the HPV shot, and always staying up-to-date on my Pap smears.
I got lucky that my cheater didn’t pass anything along to me (sheer dumb luck, and STD transmission between women, which we all were, is slightly less common). The stress of it did make me break out in a brutal shingles infection in my 20s, which my doctor was pretty shocked to see.
Well I did get STI testing while pregnant with our 3rd & 4th during the many many D-days. I was lucky and didn’t contract anything. But, my discovery was pre Chump Lady and I stayed in the marriage for a long time. Ended up with a vague autoimmune pain disorder, the meds for which made me obese (still working on that, I’m now down to overweight). My twins who were baked in repeated trauma filled discoveries in the second half of my pregnancy ended up going into heart failure as children, with no cause ever found. I know the horror of those months damaged them too.
They are young adults who’ve had multiple heart surgeries and live on serious meds. Lives forever altered.
Infidelity is absolutely abuse.
I had a pap several weeks ago, and my internist said that HPV screening is the norm now with that. It had been a few years for me. Thankfully, the HPV part came back negative.
My overall health struggled, but I was also working three jobs. Both college kids had two jobs each and had beaten the bushes for scholarships/aid. We were living on the bare bones, concerned about the impact of my mounting legal problems. Well, it settled, but I still paid way more than I should have for dividing cars and retirement assets, even though my attorney wrote off a lot of the work. I have long-term orthopedic problems because of the type of work I did during that period, but aging is also part of it. Thankfully, I’m semi-retired now.
My ex also canceled our health insurance before the divorce was final. I already had the college kids covered because we had removed it from the agreement, but I assumed the 60-day post-divorce extension would be enough for me to convert it into a COBRA-like policy that was actually better than ACA at the time. Nah. I went to fill a prescription, and they wanted $1100. My doctor was so angry when I called that she told me to come into the office, and she would do a search with me present to find an alternative, a coupon, or a special program. I eventually got the insurance issue straightened out and got retroactive coverage, but really? Just more confirmation that the marriage had to end.
Mine too. While divorcing, FW took me off the health insurance during the pandemic and didn’t tell me about it.
Words From cheater, 48 hours after D day..” Hey, chump!!! All those vaginal infections you’ve had the past 2 years?? Not from me! I went to a Urologist and he said I was good and that the infections and multiple gyn visits you needed( creams, suppositories, oral meds)indicate its FROM YOU.
ZERO CONTACT started day 11 after D day…I have not had one infection in 4 years since no contact.
This was one of the million parting gifts of no contact..thanks to CL advice.i see my GYN every year and she is Very proud of me.
Yes, funny how those UTIs clear right up–and don’t come back– after they are gone from our lives.
I am Vintage age and not required to get a pap screen. HOWEVER my GYN knows my story and will do a pap smear forever if I ask..she suggests if you FIND OUT you are having sex or had sex with a cheater, keep getting tested with a pap smears post initial specific labs for cheater infections..vaginal testing that you must get after you are aware you had a cheater in your bed. For those that trust their cheater? Keep asking for the indebth labs.
And for ladies that keep getting vaginal infections over and over like I did? Get curious.
I haven’t posted in a really long time. I have a new great life. BUT about 3 years ago I also found out I have HPV 16. I was told it likely had been 15 years to get to the point I was at( divorced for 7 at that time). The FW is just the gift that keeps giving. I now have to undergo rather invasive and painful tests every year to keep an eye on this thing and just had a LEEP procedure ( I had to put my foot down and did that one under general anesthesia after reading the horrific stories I read). My female Gyno , when hearing the timeline, simply said “ don’t go there” with an angry look on her face. Oh yes she has heard that story before: 36 year faithful wife gets HPV.
Hopefully I will not get cervical cancer.
HPV 16 cervical cancer surivivor, here. HPV 16 developed into THREE rounds of recurrent cancer and all because he couldn’t fess up and say he wanted to f*ck other women. (What is it with these people?!?!) Hysterectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy under my belt. I’m alllll about gaining a life and I have – I am SO content where I am.
But where is that guy? Consequence free with schmoopie and a child.
My happiness was not off the charts, but I never slept with anyone else. And yet here I am, paying the price for the rest of my life with the possibility that cancer can kill me. I’m not waiting to see it, but I hope the karma bus flattens his life.
My ex-FW put many people’s health at risk. Most of his betrayal objects that I learned about had STIs/STDs before they began having encounters with him. He was a serial cheater, and also cheated with multiple people at the same time; including the same week. So, I know it was quite likely he spread one disease or infection or one strain or another to a number of betrayal objects. More than a few developed cervical cancer from HPV. This was especially likely in places where he had numerous ongoing betrayal objects, some regularly for 10 or 15 years, like the DMV (Wash, DC area). California, Florida, CO, and NM. My body knew early on that something was dangerous and sick about him and I had limited physical contact with him the last 15 or so years. Still I got regular exams, full blood screens and paptests, and still do, 2x/year. And once I began to learn of his many betrayal objects, I would not let him touch me, literally. Not a pat on the back or a touch on the arm. Zero. Separate bedrooms and bathrooms, until he was thankfully gone. I am so glad she spoke up! Good for her. I was kind enough to tell some of the betrayal objects I could easily locate (maybe 20 or so of them) that they needed to get tested and examined for STIs and STDs, in case they somehow did not know they were one of many. So glad it is behind me. Props to her for speaking up!!
I’ve told these stories before, but here goes:
Cheater #1 gave me multiple sexually transmitted infections and sexually transmitted diseases. STIs, STDs, whatever you wish to call them. Multiple cases of chlamydia, which required treatment with expensive antibiotics with some not-so-fun side effects. I went through several rounds of treatment before one kind physician’s assistant asked me some pointed questions about my supposedly monogamous marriage and indicated that my medical history indicated that someone was being unfaithful.
Syphilis, for which the treatment is (or was at the time) two injections of Wycillin, one in each hip given by two nurses at the same time with humungous syringes of thick, white stuff and two equally enormous needles.
Untreated STIs caused pelvic inflammatory disease, which caused massive scarring and permanently destroyed my fertility.
Ongoing yeast infections caused by the frequent rounds of potent antibiotics to treat repeated STIs before D-Day #2. I had incorrectly concluded that he was faithful following D-Day #1 because he insisted to the marriage counselor that he was.
Cheater #2 have me HPV (and more chlamydia). The HPV required cryosurgery to remove the hundreds of genital warts caused by the HPV, and then laser surgery because (again, no one told me it was sexually transmitted) when they recurred. Painful, expensive, and humiliating. And more yeast infections as a “possible side effect” of the antibiotics used to treat the chlamydia. He also endangered my health when he tried to strangle me to death after multiple threats to murder me for questioning his fidelity.
Cheater #3 — vaginal infections and UTIs. He also endangered my health by driving while intoxicated, boating while drinking and drugging, attempting to “fix” the propane line with a lighted joint hanging out of his mouth and the two fatal “accidents” (that I know of) he arranged for me. But he was really good at hiding his extramarital activities, and I trusted him right up until his sister told me he was involved with his high school girlfriend again. I should have left him the first time he knocked me down, but we were on our boat far from land or civilization. I was lucky. I was able to get free and divorce the FW.
I got one very treatable sti but I was living in France at the time and the doctor described it as something couples pass back and forth to each other so we both got treated. Due to the language barrier I didn’t quite understand but I dug out medical reports later and figured it out post DDay. Thank god nothing else which is astonishing given I was cheated on during the whole 25 years of marriage. My health deteriorated massively after DDay due to stress. Weight loss, PTSD, bowel issues, vestibular migraines and more. It’s just a thing that never leaves you but you do integrate it into your system and it wears you down. I’m grateful to have good doctors who get this and they are vigilant because they said stress like mine plays a big role in getting cancers. Cheating is bad for your health- mentally, physically, financially, spiritually. It’s abuse. It’s manipulation. It’s a theft of your reality.
So many ways!
-I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia during a particularly stressful time in our marriage, when I was being abused but didn’t realize it on a cognitive level.
-In those same years I went to gyn. for suspected genital herpes.
-About 4 years later I tested positive for a different STI, followed by two VERY serious tropical diseases which hit me at the same time just a couple of weeks later. I was hospitalized and came close to not making it out of the hospital alive. On my last visit to the gyn., I asked her if that STI could have helped bring on the double whammy tropical diseases so soon afterwards, and she said it is very likely that it reduced my immunity so that I succumbed to the diseases which kill many each year in that part of the world.
-I had an abnormal pap result not long after the last “intimate” time with my now ex. This prompted the need for me to have two extremely painful further tests, a cervical biopsy and a colposcopy. Thankfully they came back OK, but I now have to have a pap annually since getting the abnormal result a few years ago.
-I have had to work on healing from C-PTSD, depression, and anxiety disorder with a whole lot of therapy and some medication.
What decades of abuse and intermittent cheating can do to a person (and their kids) can take a lifetime to recover from – I think I’m in this category.
He put me at risk of STDs by canoodling with his colleague, who was also canoodling with her husband for one. Then, in the midst of Covid (he left Nov. 7, 2020) he would get petulant about wearing a mask correctly, and I have type 1 diabetes!
I have advanced uterine cancer.
Diagnosed (Oct 24), four months after FW2 finally left the marital home for good (June 24).
My disease is not curable, it is “treatable”.
It will limit my life span, significantly.
During that marriage I was also diagnosed with HPV2 and had repeated intense vaginal irritation and itching.
The latter has subsequently cleared up completely.
F&ck u cancer
And very particularly, F@ck U Esther Perel.
Thank you for sharing your story Eileen. X
@not our shame to wear
Yes, I had a bad case of BV for a long time while still with eX. He pretended to be concerned about my discomfort while I was trying everything to cure it but nothing worked. Well, leaving him (and his lovely ladies with whom I had not consented to be involved) is what cured me.
By the way, all these stories posted here today are heartbreaking and it makes me feel so angry for the suffering and pain that you all have endured.
This is exactly how I feel, and you expressed it so much better than I’ve been able to.
I read the article and cruel comments by – you guessed it! – men who said she couldn’t prove she got it from her cheating husband.
Her story is close to my story: I got one of the “bad five” HPVs that cause cancer from my cheater. “But I wore condoms!” is the rallying cry. BUT CONDOMS DONT PREVENT HPV.
Oral sex doesn’t involve condoms and can transmit HPV.
My cheater got it from wh()re #1 but only gave and didn’t receive Oral from wh()re #2, so SHE didn’t get it but I did. Because wh()re #1 from Ashley Madison wasn’t “exclusive.” Shocking, I know.
Multiple excruciatingly painful procedures and I am now HPV-free.
But the rage I have.
Making it worse is that I am an award-winner for making – irony isn’t dead – HPV prevention videos.
When I got my kids the HPV vaccinations I should have gotten them, too. All adult women including married should get vaccinated.
He cheated with dozens upon dozens of hookers and random women throughout our entire “marriage” (27+ years), including during both of my pregnancies and breastfeeding.
He contracted crabs from a hooker; tried to blame it on “dodgy sheets at the hotel” – fortunately I did NOT get them.
As a result of over a quarter of a century of his lying / cheating / gaslighting / manipulation / coercive control / emotional abuse / psychological abuse / sexual coercion / sexual abuse / narcissistic abuse, I developed:
· Irritable Bowel Syndrome
· Thyroid Cancer
· Generalized Anxiety Disorder
· C-PTSD
· Lost a pregnancy due to extreme stress and betrayal trauma
My Ex-FW gave me HPV. I had my cervix cauterized. My creep of a gyno at the time, didn’t give me anything to numb the pain. I cried, he slapped my thigh, told me not to move, said I deserved what I got for being promiscuous. I still didn’t know it was an STD. This was a long time ago. The second or third time I tried to leave he punched me in the face five times. I have a scar on the inside of my lower lip, these 35 years later to remind me. I didn’t just divorce, I escaped.
Other than mental & emotional abuse by his narcissistic behaviour, I found out he was cheating when my doctor told me I had an STD. As a health care worker, I told my doctor I must of picked it up at work – clearly denial was hard at work here – and my doctor sat there silently until I came to my senses. I picked up the antibiotics, came home and threw them at him. How nice that I had abnormal Pap tests for 5 years after. Should be able to sue for that 💩.
Thanks, Tracey, you have reminded me that I should go for another round of testing. It’s been a few years, and these things can change.
About 10 weeks after FW abandoned us to live with his affair partner, he contracted HSV2. Fortunately, I did not get it, but he certainly put me at risk. Schmoopie’s ex-husband told me about the affair, which prompted FW to jump ship and leave. The messenger was not motivated by kindness or concern, but I feel truly fortunate that my marriage ended just in the nick of time.
When he disclosed his affair, I panicked about STIs. He said, “She’s clean.” I kid you not. All was well in his entitled, narcissistic mind. I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it.
When we were first married, I got genital warts. I was a virgin when we married. He said he must have gotten it from a patient who had genital warts (he’s a physician). I remember saying, “Don’t you wear gloves and wash your hands?”
Only when I was divorcing did a female gyn tell me that he could only have gotten genital warts from his patient if he had sex with the patient. Dammit. My male gyn at the time never mentioned that. He want along with my then-huband’s rationale.