The Day Your Cheater Lost Centrality
The Friday Challenge is: the day your cheater lost their centrality. Or what we call “meh” around here. When did they stop having the power to hurt you?
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The last two weeks preparing for the podcast “Tell Me How You’re Mighty“, Sarah and I have been sorting through Pain Olympics submissions, of who had the greatest FW. (The competition is stiff. In the end we couldn’t declare a winner. They all suck.)
We need a palate cleanser. Some good news. Some, well, mightiness.
So tell CN about when the spell started to break.
When did you first realize that you were dealing with a FW?
What was the precipitating event? Did it come on you suddenly or gradually? How did your cheater lose their centrality?
I realize if you’re still coparenting, the best you can hope for is gray rock and iron-clad boundaries. These people can still take your children hostage emotionally. True meh isn’t possible.
But at some point they lose their power to hurt you. The insults don’t land. The bids for attention fall flat. You realize the prize you were pick-me dancing for was a turd. And you take your leave from the turd.
So, CN, tell me what meh feels like.
And we always, always welcome your voice messages here.
TGIF!
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The day that would have been my 40th wedding anniversary. That would have been about 3 and a half years post divorce. It came and went, and about a week later I realized not only had I forgotten the anniversary, any thoughts about him hadn’t popped up in quite awhile. That felt good!
One thing I never forget? The anniversary of my divorce being finalized. Fixin’ to celebrate that in just a few days. Booyah!
Yes! I totally forgot about our 40th wedding anniversary, or what would have been. He contacted me, like he was moved by it or something. I ignored, no comments, no response. The day was irrelevant to me. I hear you. I don’t think I have noticed the day in subsequent years. No meaning. Yes to booyah!
There were so many moments….I do recall that once I began to see just who these betrayal objects were, what they looked like, how they lived, mug shots, STIs/STDs, etc, I was so grossed out. I met some, others were known to people I knew, some I just saw online, but ugh. Once I saw who they were and what they were about, it reinforced my decision to never have any physical contact with him of any kind. I could see what a loser he was, what an amazing treasure I am, and he became irrelevant. Having the total support of virtually everyone we ever knew or socialized with was an extra help. Friends, neighbors, my running community, religious community, all were supportive of me. They were disgusted and wanted nothing to do with him. All that helped render him laughable, meaningless, useless.
During separation #2, it was a gradual realization that it was over. He ran off to the beach, and I was at home with two upset college kids, a large house, and ultimately, multiple jobs. He was retired, no work. All of the imbalances began to weigh on me, particularly because he and his religious family made me 95% responsible for the mess. My husband seriously said, “This is yours to fix.”
I truly hit meh when I saw that the judge had signed off. I had been no contact during the divorce process. Yes, I needed that. Nothing he did or sent in an email fazed me after that. No more sleepless nights or anxiety over him.
Yes, he dragged out closeout, particularly after his attorney died. He went pro se and was horrid. Eventually, I heard from him less and less until blessed silence. From what I know, he settled into a long-term relationship, and that was that.
It was the day that our youngest daughter (then 18) left secondary education. That was the point at which Ex-Mrs LFTT ceased to be able to use her any rights that she had as a non-custodial parent to make life difficult for me by causing trouble at our daughter’s School.
To say that our youngest daughter’s last day at School was a liberation is an understatement.
LFTT
I hate how many FWs weaponize the fact that coparenting is a necessity. But you got your kids through highschool anyways, which is such an achievement from the sounds of it! Hopefully, the trouble Ex-Mrs caused didn’t affect your daughter’s school experience too much.
C-D-C,
It’s as a result of our youngest daughter’s experiences at School and the chaos that her mother caused that led her to refuse her mother permission to visit her while she was at University.
Sadly, our youngest daughter knows her mother’s tendency to ruin things for others.
LFTT
The first time I realized maybe it wasn’t me was when Lizard started a fight on my birthday. He was one of those FWs who tried to ruin every special event, and while the closest family member to me had made sure that I had the perfect birthday. Lizard had been pouting the entire time, and we had a large fight that night that left me hyperventilating in the fetal position in the hallway. He then told me he now saw I was actually struggling and he would take me seriously. When I pointed out I had spent most of our relationship telling him I was struggling and communicated that, he gave me some excuse about not really taking me seiously.
He wasn’t listening to me. He wouldn’t listen to me, not really, unless I was having a mental breakdown in front of him.
For the first time, I went, “The issue isn’t me. It’s him. And nothing will change,” and while I immediately felt guilty for even thinking that and pushed that feeling down, that was my first realization that maybe this wasn’t worth pick-me dancing for.
He also told me I needed to stop crying “because the neighbors might hear you and call the cops, and then you could throw up from crying so hard, and then they’ll think I punched you in the stomach and arrest me” which is… a really weird thing to say.
My journey to meh was a weird one, because I ended up working through morurning the relationship while still in it, due to my stubborn desire to make things work. I stayed until I basically couldn’t care anymore, until I had burnt myself out. But that was my first step in the journey.
In the year after I left him I gradually stopped caring. I had been working diligently on my peace of mind, otherwise I think it would have taken longer. There was certainly some immediate relief after he was gone, but I still had to train myself to stop looking to get justice, closure or whatever. I learned to just leave it alone and when you leave it alone it stops mattering.
It’s been a slow and determined march towards meh for me. I have not seen Cheaty for a year and a few months ago he decided that my occasional emails to him (informational/requests/questions) were unacceptable and worth my lawyer telling me that me might apply for and be granted a restraining order against me. Of course his demand didn’t prevent him from contacting me because he is the king of double standards as well as deception. Anyway, I saw him recently. He marched right up to hand me some paperwork. I felt nothing but calm and reassured that I am well on my way to my best life.
Sadly for me, it would be when he died 27 years after we divorced. His main hobby was legal abuse, and I was far from his only target. He filed vexatious litigation for years. He’s been gone for 6 years and it has been peace and quiet since then.
I am not quite at Tuesday. As a matter of fact I am about to have my third anniversary from D-Day. Below I will share what I feel the important milestones have been.
A few days after she moved out, I decided to move the desk and shelves that she left behind to better accommodate “just me.” Partially disassembling the desk so I could move it by myself (corner desk), I was on the floor in what was until a few days ago at that point her personal space in the apartment. I realized before long that with all of the stains in the carpet, all of the food ground in…that she had never cleaned her personal area. For all of her grandstanding during D-Day about how awful I was and wasn’t…I was literally rolling around in this woman’s filth cleaning up yet another one of her messes. I had to laugh. I think it was the first time since D-Day that I had laughed. It showed me “THIS is the person you want to come back.” And that she was probably full of it on a lot of other things.
I’ve already beaten the “failed attempt at couples counseling after the fact” horse pretty good. That was when I realized that there was no possibility of friendship if she wanted to relitigate “the breakup” in her favor and not discuss terms on how to co-exist like we had planned. It’s also the day No Contact started. It’s the day that “trust and respect” formally entered the equation for me. I’d say that is when the healing process really began.
About 6 months from D-Day I got my first (and last) nasty email from her. Which I read and promptly filed away without responding. I knew the trap. I was not falling into it. It was all her being lazy and really had nothing to do with me.
A year to the day from that email I went on my first date since she left (which was complete happenstance-the individual had cancelled something and rescheduled to that date. I had to chuckle.) I felt like I was attractive and wanted again and had empirical proof that my worth was not keyed to being betrayed. I later cut that person off for lack of effort and disrespect. I did not Pick-Me Dance when it was evident that I had to compete for their attention. So “proved the existence of my returned dignity and self respect.”
Finally, about a year ago, I was wandering a mall in Tokyo looking for a late dinner and looking forward to Akihabara the next day when I realized that I had not thought of the idiot in a couple of days. I started crying. I felt the last of the things that had been locked up and sealed off on D-Day fall away. It was the first time, I think, I felt actually kind of happy like I was when things were good with my traitor…but I didn’t need her for that feeling. I needed ME!
Have a Traitor Free Friday!
The day FW and OW lost their centrality, I was in New Zealand on a farm in the middle of nowhere. A friend texted me that they both finally got fired from their high-profile jobs. I always wondered how a board member at a US-listed company could have an affair with a subordinate, promote her to Strategic Director, and then marry her just to save face—all with zero consequences. How on earth was that even possible? Well, when I got the news they were both kicked to the curb, I danced on that farm until midnight. The karma bus finally arrived. It felt as though a dark cloud had lifted, and justice had finally prevailed.
The situation was like terrible physical pain or a jackhammer 24/7/365 outside my house. It dominated my attention and hijacked my brain without my permission. It subsides gradually over a long period of time. I would notice that I had not been thinking about it. I noticed I was able to pay attention to other things. I would notice I was not disturbed by things that had previously disturbed me. Etc.
For me, it’s like trying to watch grass grow. If I sit there and stare at it, I can’t see it growing. I will only notice at some point that it has grown.
The wounds of infidelity don’t have the visual impact of black eyes, bruises, stab wounds, or broken bones. Unlike those types of physical injuries, there is no clear treatment plan and the healing timeline is open-ended.
I often felt like I was barely clinging to a little tiny makeshift raft in the middle of the darkest most incredibly stormy sea, towering waves all around, about to drown at any minute.
It’s been 8.5 years since DDay and I hardly ever feel that way anymore, which is a huge relief.
After I found out about his cheating from checking his phone, he made a big deal about what a terrible person I was for “invading [his] privacy” and how he would never, ever in a million years invade my privacy like that.
During the divorce, he handed me a stack of legal paperwork, but he made a mistake. He accidentally included a print-out of a photograph. It was a photograph of a post I’d made on my private FB wall talking about the divorce to friends. Not a screenshot; a photograph of my monitor. Meaning he’d gotten onto my desktop in my apartment and used my computer to sift through my Facebook wall for things he could use in the divorce. Which was clearly worse than me taking a quick peek at his text messages.
I confronted him with the photograph. “What was that you said about never, EVER invading my privacy like I invaded yours?”
“I didn’t take that picture,” he said without missing a beat. “Someone else took that picture and sent it to me.”
“FW, this is NOT a screenshot. It’s a photo of my monitor taken by someone who was in my apartment using my desktop. You’re saying someone broke into my apartment to spy for you??”
He shrugged and said, “I’m just saying, someone else sent me that, I didn’t take it myself.” Of course he refused to divulge the identity of this mystery benefactor.
I spent the next several months in near hysteria that he had people breaking into my apartment on his behalf. Later, in one of our arguments, I pointed out that one of us had people breaking into the other’s apartment, so we are clearly not the same. He asked what the heck I was talking about, and I reminded him about the picture.
“Oh. I took that picture. No one else was in your apartment.”
I think that was when I finally realized that this man tells the dumbest f***ing lies and there is literally no reason to believe anything he says about anything, ever. He lies even when the lie is clearly worse than the truth. He lies even when it would make perfect sense to come clean. He had, in fact, lied like this many times before, and I had believed him thinking, “Well, it’s weird, but it must be true because who would tell such a dumb f***ing lie?”
The answer is, he would.
Monstrous. Yeesh.
I think the biggest centrality loss was on 12/6/2014. It was the day when I was 7 months pregnant and had a D-day. I didn’t even cry. I gathered all the evidence and sat there asking myself how long I had to put up with this. I told myself at the time that I married for life and this was something I had to address with him, but I was clear in my heart that I didn’t love him anymore. You just can’t love someone who cheats on you when you are pregnant. I wasn’t ready to divorce him and believed I needed to remain married for our child. I felt stuck with klootzak. But klootzak and his happiness were no longer the center of my world.
He was gone a lot so I used every opportunity to do fun things with my son and ignore klootzak’s existence. Looking back, my mind shifted. You know how some people claim their spouse thinks they are just a paycheck? That’s where my mind went. After I started working again, I needed him less and less. The D-day that made me consult an attorney didn’t come for years after that after I had read LACGAL and started doing things that lined up my ducks. But the centrality and love were long gone.
For me it happened slowly, there was no real aha moment. A long time ago I read here that the opposite to love is not hate but indifference. Ohhh I ached for the indifference, I faked indifference or so I thought until quite recently when one of my adult children let me know that FW and the varient were getting married (oh the irony 🤣🤣🤣) I felt nothing. That moment was incredibly liberating so maybe that was my aha moment.
Much love to CN especially the newbies…. It really does get better ❤️