She Hoped Therapy Would Change Him. (It Didn’t).
She thought therapy changed him. All it did was give him a new vocabulary with which to manipulate her further. Even the therapist was fooled.
***
Dear Chump Lady
Surely I am Queen of the Chumps. I have finally left my cheater of eight years. We have a 2 year old son.
When we had been together for 4 years, I discovered he had been in a one-year (in his words ‘on and off’) sexting relationship with another woman. He broke down, cried and told me he had been abused as a child. Bleeding heart Chump agrees to help.
We went to therapy for two years and he seemed to have fired his ‘secret self’ that had resulted from the abuse and was wreaking all this havoc with our life.
The therapist was so impressed with us that we ‘graduated’ from our sessions.
I considered us a unicorn success story.
When my mum almost died, he cried at her bedside and prayed for her.
We got engaged. We had a baby. Then when the baby was 5 weeks old I discovered he had been sexting at least two women on and off for the entire pregnancy. When the baby was 7 weeks, I discovered a whole Instagram trove of dirty texts to other women. He claims it was never physical but I will never know.
I’d had a caesarean and couldn’t drive. My family were interstate. My mum was still recovering from almost dying and couldn’t visit. I decided to focus on the baby until I was on my feet. I felt totally gutted and dazed in the newborn fog.
My cheater seemed to have hit rock bottom and went in to therapy overdrive.
Joint therapy, individual therapy, men’s seggs addiction group. I love you, don’t leave me, I’m really changing.
One year on, even my own therapist thought he had really changed! I had some doubts but took a ‘wait and see’ approach, as well as getting him to sign a prenup for the sake of our family.
The day before my second Mother’s Day I learn my cheater has been sexting a woman 15 years his junior.
He claims he fell off the wagon because he is a real seggs addict and needs a different kind of therapy!
Not on my watch. Finally, I am seeing him for who he is. He sucks.
I share this as a cautionary tale to others who feel completely bamboozled by their cheater’s double life and who want to believe in unicorns.
Therapy only gave him a better vocabulary with which to excuse his disgusting behaviour.
As chumps, how do we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves second for so long?
Sincerely,
Queen of the Chumps
***
Dear Queen of the Chumps,
Many of us here can vie for your crown. We’ve been there, trusting the repentant sinner. Believing in second and fourteenth chances. Had the come to Jesus talk and swore we saw Jesus. (He was riding a unicorn.) Only to be completely hornswoggled.
You had a trusting heart.
It’s not a fault. It’s a good quality that was weaponized against you. You believed in the transformative powers of therapy over evidence of his character — many people believe in those powers. Success stories exist. And so do industries that profit from fanning false hopes.
It always comes back to what you will accept in your relationships.
When we had been together for 4 years, I discovered he had been in a one-year (in his words ‘on and off’) sexting relationship with another woman.
That was a decision point. You could’ve decided then that this relationship is not acceptable, because you’ll never feel safe with this man. He deceived you for over a year. This was important data.
He broke down, cried and told me he had been abused as a child.
Where was his accountability?
Where was his apology? Notice how he immediately centered himself. I can’t say for certain if child abuse makes people entitled FWs, but if it does, explain to me why other people experience child abuse and don’t choose to hurt others.
He could’ve owned his CHOICES. You don’t need theories about his motivations. (Paging Esther Perel: VICTIMS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO EMOTIONAL LABOR FOR THEIR ABUSERS.) You don’t need him to pivot all the sympathy off you and to himself. And you certainly don’t need his breakdown.
Now you have to be his caretaker. His confessor. And his accountability warden.
Those were always his jobs.
Bleeding heart Chump agrees to help.
Healing your heart was your job. He made it clear through his actions he wasn’t interested in your healing. Staying with an unsafe, un-sorry man, not great for healing.
We went to therapy for two years and he seemed to have fired his ‘secret self’ that had resulted from the abuse and was wreaking all this havoc with our life.
He doesn’t have an evil twin. There’s just him. We can’t pin all his misdeeds on his “secret self.” He doesn’t get to compartmentalize his bad self from his bad actions. Oh, I performed an exorcism with the help of a therapist! I’m a Real Boy now!
I’m not a therapist, and despite my RIC critiques on this blog, I’m not down on therapy. But some of these mental health folks are quacks who overestimate their powers, don’t understand abuse or character disorders, and believe that everyone who shows up on their sofa — or more likely, gets dragged their by their chumps — wants to be healed. And they’re just the right shrink for the job.
Some people just want to learn how to manipulate better.
That’s the kind of FW you got. Your clue always was him making this sh*t about his brokenness and not about how he broke YOU. And bad therapy encourages this dynamic. Goes down a rabbit hole of the FW’s subterranean motivations. (Who CARES?!) All of which are unprovable, instead of focusing on the damage of the right now.
He claims he fell off the wagon because he is a real seggs addict and needs a different kind of therapy!
Well thank God you didn’t succumb to that, or you’d be blamed for your “intimacy anorexia” or some other victim-blaming SA crap.
Maybe he does need some other kind of therapy. You’re not a therapist. You’re a woman who needs a safe and committed partner and coparent. Instead you got a FW with a wandering dick.
This is a HIM problem, not a you problem.
Therapy only gave him a better vocabulary with which to excuse his disgusting behaviour.
Yes, but the exit ramp was always the behavior. It was never your responsibility to ride this ride with him, hold his hand, and stick around long enough to listen to his new vocabulary. Many societal forces and our own hopeful, chumpy hearts make us think it is our job to save FWs from themselves.
He knows how to find more therapy. He can choose not to cheat. If he valued your relationship, he’d make better choices. But entitlement works for him. Calling it “addiction” is just a hook for your further investment.
As chumps, how do we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves second for so long?
Forgive yourself.
It’s okay to put yourself second when you’re in a relationship with someone you love. We do this with partners, parents, children. But in a healthy relationship, you take turns. (Even with children. Someday they’ll grow up and maybe look after you.) Offering help, suborning your ego, being patient — these aren’t sins. Not knowing your boundaries and dealbreakers is the issue.
If you had better boundaries (and look, must of us don’t… we learn from painful chump experience…) you would’ve told him to find the cure without you. Sexting other women and lying to you about it for over a year is your dealbreaker. Sorry it has to end this way.
You got your baby though. And many of us have these complicated blessings. But going forward — demand more before you invest. Walk when you don’t get it.
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As a Chump I’ve learned the lesson of “Nobody is Coming to Rescue You.” Reading this post I can see clearly that the same applies to FWs. Everybody needs help but nobody is going to do it for you. Enlightening column today.
My cheater did similarly.
I honestly think there’s very little benefit in therapy for people who are actively abusing their partner. It just gives them better mindfck vocabulary.
Maybe these people are capable of being helped but only when they’re operating as a single person and no longer accessing their victims.
I stopped believing in sex additiction, if it were truly an addiction they’d be craving the experience with their committed partner. The logic doesn’t logic. Its just an excuse
These people are just unevolved bonobos
“I stopped believing in sex addiction, if it were truly an addiction they’d be craving the experience with their committed partner.” THIS!! They’re actually addicted to secrets, lies, and betrayal.
My compulsively- user- of- bodies Ex said I could never give him enough. He wanted a vending machine with all the flavors and varieties he could try. He would have needed a harem. SA or whatever you want to call it, is uncontrolled, selfish, using and punishing. It is not and cannot ever be called love or confined to one person. So I don’t know what it is except extremely destructive to anyone who gets too close. There is no cure except abstinence forever-
You CANNOT STAY IN THE SAME ENVIRONMENT THAT MADE YOU SICK
Queen of the Chumps,
You asked “As Chumps, how do we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves second for so long?”
I think that the answer to that lies somewhere between “You are a caring and considerate partner who understands that sometimes you need to put someone else’s needs first … this is a good thing and you are a good person” and “The first principle of First Aid is not to become a casualty yourself.”
It’s really hard deciding at what point we can put our own needs ahead of those of someone we care about without feeling guilty about it. And even if we get it right, we often feel bad about it anyway, because that is how we are programmed. I think that self forgiveness can start once you’ve realised that you’ve been giving too much of yourself for too long and to the wrong person … and done something about it.
LFTT
A vase with a bottomless pit that nothing can fill
Yes to everything LFTT says.
I was also rather religious (I still am but I engage in my religion mostly inside of myself these days; I find the rest of Jesus’ fan club rather tedious at this juncture.) My religion teaches a permanence to marriage and the world told me that if I was a wonderful wife, I would have a happy, functional family.
I also had a sucky childhood and I worked hard to overcompensate for stuff that was never my fault. I would throw myself under whatever bus was needed to keep my family afloat. So, yea, I put myself last for a LONG time
I struggled with that for so long with a side of religious guilt. I went to a “no divorce ever” church where my ex preached at times.
I had to let go of the past and push to a better place both with God and myself. I had a lot of wrong beliefs and had to make amends that were hard. I left the “no divorce ever” church.
But good now. Really good.
I’ve stated many times that there are loads of crap therapists out there. My FW narcopath also did all the faux therapy stuff even suggested SA counseling all as a convenient cover for his abuse and decades long secret double life.
Chumps must be very careful with therapists. Ideally a trauma informed one who’s been chumped by a serial cheater him/herself.
Dr. Peter Salerno has a video where he called out the common blindspot of therapists busy attributing things to FOO issues, subconscious stuff, and missing the glaringly obvious which is there are bad people who are intentionally bad.
I’m almost 15 years quit of my former FW, but I have a couple of notes on therapy. Early on, when I was still living with FW, a therapist I met with said, “Only work with someone who is trauma-focused. If they bring up co-dependency, run far away.” Good advice.
Meantime I found a wonderful talk therapist who was helpful. I had asked a friend who was a therapist herself, and she gave me the name telling me that it’s who she would go to, except they were colleagues and friends. A while later, I found a therapist who did EMDR. That was a game changer. Not only did it help me deal with all the painful crud related to my marriage, Switzerland friends etc, but it helped me deal with crud from much earlier in my life (that had, I think, set me up as an ideal chump.) I highly recommend EMDR.
Finally a note on some therapy that FW entered while we were divorcing. The guy he saw remote diagnosed me as Borderline! He’d never met me, only seen the FW a few times. Bonkers, and honestly, malpractice. Even the FW thought it was a really bad call. But you never know–I’m sure it was based on some kind of avalanche of horrible things spewed by FW.
Yes, I put way too much stock in therapy for my ex. His PhD therapist completely called him on the carpet in between our two separations, and she chose to contact me after he quit therapy because she was concerned about my safety from some things he said. She also told me that she had diagnosed him with borderline on the malignant side, leaning toward narcassism.
While separated the second time, I tried to convince him to go back (I was still processing), and even found a therapist couple that was highly recommended that did Zoom individual and couples therapy. Nope. He decided therapy was unbiblical, and his oldest sibling told me that his family was all my husband needed for dealing with our problems. And of course, they also tried to tell me what to do. Ultimately, I said no more from them just before my ex kicked off the divorce.
During that period, I also saw a local spiritual coach. She had been a church-based lay counsellor (now they call them coaches) with twenty plus years of talking to women in very difficult marriages. She focused on my wrong beliefs and misinformation and gave me a lot of reading. She also recommended formal trauma therapy, which I did.
Those two ladies turned me around, and I was solid during the divorce despite all the drama. My older attorney also talked like a therapist at times, shooting down some of my thinking in a supportive way. He was a gem and retired the day after the judge signed off. I was solidly in meh when I saw in the online system that the judge had signed off. Closeout was also wild, but my closeout attorney (the associate of my retired attorney) and I mostly just laughed it off. He was also an amazing legal force and knew exactly how to handle my ex’s attorney.
A good therapist can make a difference, but don’t count on them for the ugly types who are living in disorder and lies. Nobody is coming to rescue you. Hire solid peope for your side of it and push through. Better days are ahead!
Dear Queen of the Chumps,
Been there. Done that. I have the scars—and the therapy bills—to prove it.
I was in a 20-year relationship with my FW, 15 years of which we were legally married. About a year and a half into the marriage, I stumbled upon his secret sexual basement. Nearly broke my leg falling into that cesspool.
He immediately embarked on his healing journey. At first, he claimed to have an internet addiction. Off to treatment he went. Then he got caught again with his pants down—quite literally—so his diagnosis evolved into sex addiction. New therapist. Weekly Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings. And because irony has a wicked sense of humour, he ended up hooking up with one of his fellow addicts.
Cue therapy regime number three: cognitive behavioural therapy.
And so the cycle of discovery, remorse, promises, and treatment repeated itself ad nauseam. Over the course of our 20 years together, he spent 12 years in one form of individual therapy or another.
At the end of it all, I could detect no growth. No genuine insight. No meaningful change. He did, however, become remarkably fluent in the language of therapy. He could weaponize words like “triggers,” “shame,” and “authenticity” with Olympic-level skill. He became a master of triangulating with his therapists and explaining why his latest betrayal was somehow part of his healing journey.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: you cannot heal someone who is more committed to their dysfunction than to your well-being. You can love them. You can support them. You can buy every self-help book on the planet and memorize the difference between enabling and healthy boundaries. It won’t matter. Change is an inside job.
Looking back, I wasn’t married to a man. I was in a long-running pilot project for therapeutic failure.
He thought I would never leave. I thought he would change. Turns out we were both wrong. And now that I am finally on the other side, my only regret is that I did not leave him sooner. Nevertheless, divorcing him was the best decision I ever made.
Yes, one time my therapist used the phrase “honest growth mindset” as the key to a balanced life at every stage. She also talked about living in reality versus hopium.
My ex was very rigid and unyielding even when the marriage was going relatively well, so no surprise that he’d tell me that he was A-OK after we separated. In many ways, his reality was the only reality. I was the crazy, messed-up one who destroyed the marriage. I realize that narrative made him a hero and that it couldn’t be countered in any meaningful way. He also thought that I’d never cut him out of my life. Well, I did.
It took me two marriages to learn this: you cannot heal someone who is more committed to their dysfunction than to your well-being. Amen.
Recovery, whether from substance abuse or “sexual addiction” is it’s own reward. Other people not wanting to through all the collateral damage with you is not a failure on their part. Using a partners separation from you because of your addiction as a reason for your failures is a reflection on your lack of commitment to being sober, nothing more.
Yes, I’m always skeptical of when people’s sobriety depends on what you do and do not do. So much bad therapy encourages this thinking. It’s the basis of the RIC.
No my dear Queen, I am the Queen x2. I even sat in a 12 step SA group and listened to the men cry about this disease. I got sick and had to leave the meeting!!!I read that books by Patrick Carnes- that EXPERT?? Stay, they are sick, Stay, take care of yourself. No you are not the Queen, you are loving and bonded. Your man just found a soft touch..which is what they depend on and have babies with and shackle with leg irons of promises. No it is not you, your faults are human nature..I am so sorry. I never ever saw a cure for x2 cheaters..I saw PROGRESSION and the use of Special sex therapist that taught my exes how to use even more words to trap me with lies of HOPE that ultimately drowned me. Get out now or get out when you have 3 more kids and an STD or worse, mental damage from.the pure strain of it. There is no cure without hard work and cheaters do not like hard work when easy sex is around every corner. Go now, take it from me. Go.
FW also went to therapy, but not to heal. He wanted attention, validation, and also the chance to poach my therapist. He’d say he’d continue therapy, but only if I found someone else. Twice I moved on, and he didn’t follow through. His intent may have been to cut off MY support.
FW literally used his therapists as audiences for his music. He’d bring in tapes and ask for in-session
critiquescompliments. He even tried to get at least one therapist to buy and sell them to other clients as therapy! And FW had no depth or insight, nor did his lyrics.He loved an audience, so he loved support groups where he got to drone on and on uninterrupted.
FW also used therapy groups as a shortcut to finding like-minded friends.
When we went for couples therapy, the therapist identified his behavior as stonewalling. Instead of recognizing it as a problem, he seemed to feel validated because it had a different name than “ignoring.”
When the therapist asked about our sex life, he stormed out when I mentioned erectile dysfunction. That was the end of that therapy.
Too bad I didn’t remain on my own, because that therapist believed in Gottman’s four horsemen, and looking back, I think he would have told me straight out that the marriage was unlikely to last because FW had already checked out.
After years of useless joint talk therapy, I finally realized that an educated therapist would have separated us into individual therapy for betrayal trauma and whatever therapy is recommended for selfish, shallow people with no boundaries. Cheaty McLiarface still sees the original therapist as she has become his current “nice” mommy substitute. I was/am the “mean” mommy. Four times a week for five and a half years without any appreciable change. I now refer to her as his “talk prostitute.”
Queen of the Chumps,
You said you’ve left but haven’t mentioned other details. Have you actually retained a lawyer? Have you checked all financials and gotten an STD panel? Have you found a therapist for yourself (one who understands cheating is abuse), so you have support?
If not, those are your next steps.
Don’t tell your husband anything you’re doing. Keep your cards close to the chest.
I was with Traitor Ex for 27 years, married for 20. When he agreed to dating exclusively, I asked if he would go to counseling with me to learn healthy relationship skills. We met in recovery with a number of years of sobriety. We both came from troubled alcoholic families. I wanted to break the pattern and do things differently. Therapy, as preventive maintenance, was a frequent regular part of our lives. For 27 years.
For our 20th wedding anniversary, I found out he had been lying and conducting a secret sexual double life THE ENTIRE TIME. Lying about his sobriety. Hiding money from me. Lying lying lying about God knows what to who. A very Bernie Madoff situation.
I was with someone for 27 years and I DID NOT KNOW WHO HE WAS.
Therapists are not able to read minds and do not have magic powers of perception. An expert FBI profiler acquaintance (Mary Ellen O’Toole) wrote in her book, Dangerous Instincts, that there are people who are so skilled at lying that they can get past the radar of even experts like herself. A detective involved in my case told me that you only know anyone as much as they will let you.
IMHO, birds of a feather should flock together. Don’t bother trying to change someone who deceives and betrays you. If you find out someone you are with is a liar and a cheater, drop them like radioactive waste and get away. They belong with their own kind.
I’ve been learning to put myself first since DD#2 (and last) four years ago (which ended 26 years with FW). At work, with kids, with friends. Learning what is acceptable to me in each of these contexts. Seeing that each situation has a cost and considering is it really appropriate that I pay the price here? Currently, facing the challenge of health issues requiring time off from work. My ego prides on being a perfect immigrant, with not a month’ worth of gaps between job in a 20-year career as a lawyer and no leaves (other than to care for newborn). So it was hard to admit that pushing through this time would risk dramatically deteriorating my physical health and require my kids to take time off work to care for me. And to admit I have no power over how my body feels and this is not something I can will into being or power through. I put myself first, while acknowledging that someone else is bearing the cost and inconvenience of this decision. I have drawn boundaries with friends and stopped chasing where that’s become a pattern. I’m learning to value myself and be my own best friend.
My FW used therapists to his advantage. He brought me to his therapist after DD#1 to basically extract an absolution from me (unsuccessfully) and didn’t want to hear anything about how it felt for me to be in the marriage. It was a waste of my time and the therapist was in way over her head (sheltered young woman who fell for his charms). The only session he dragged me into after DD#2 and our impending separation, he took me to my therapist and it was a very clarifying experience. He didn’t look at me a single time in the whole hour and was working my therapist to say that all of this is due to FWs childhood trauma. I had clarity on just how alone I was in this marriage and just how unseen I was by FW and how little he was interested in or oriented towards me. It was almost absurd and funny and I knew it was over.