WomanSavers.com Forum / CATCH A CHEATER / I have a beef with this

GOOD!  I hope you do come back and I hope you gain and maintain the strength you need to leave this creature.  Note that I didn‘t call him a man!

You don‘t have to confront him.  All you have to do is leave and do so with your dignity and integrity in tact.

At a young 51 (hubba-hubba) the best is yet to come and wasting any more time on him would be a short step from criminal.

I wish you the best!

All marriages have problems, but never is cheating a solution.  We teach our children to identify and work on their problems constructively don‘t we?  How many of us would say, "Johnny, you‘re right, math class is boring, just quit studying and cheat off the other kids whenever you have a test."  "When the ref isn‘t looking, kick that other guy in the nuts."

The fundamental problem that causes cheating is that the cheater is a narcissist, with the emotional maturity of a 4-year old.  Instead of having a healthy adult‘s psyche, they crave or demand to have their ego persistently stroked.  Constant flattery, verbally and physically.  They are fully self-absorbed like a little child, but it‘s not just a stage on their way to growing up, it‘s their stunted conclusion.

All cheaters complain about their spouses.  All cheaters construct a narrative about their marriage that justifies their cheating.  Otherwise they‘d have to accept that they‘re just plain wrong, and acknowledge that the responsibility for cheating is their own.

My wife has had an affair, I just discovered, for four straight years.  As I have uncovered voluminous correspondence in the form of texts and e-mails, I‘ve been given a view into the mental state of two long-time cheaters.  They are both, in my opinion, pitifully needy people, who must constantly hear only the most lofty praise and experience only the most immediately satisfying experiences with no responsibility.  Was I a perfect spouse?  Surely not.  Do I have some annoying habits, am I sometimes less than perfectly dressed, do I sometimes forget to complement the latest hair, makeup or dress?  Yep.  But did I choose to appropriately ignore some of her not-life-altering annoying habits, love her with all my heart and all my body, praise her beauty and intelligence sincerely and love and father her children to the best of my ability.  Yep.  And did I offer and ask to try harder, go to counseling and make the efforts needed to make it work?  You bet.  What does that mean?  It just means that I made the effort a marriage deserves.  Nothing remarkable or special, just what marriages deserve, to try your hardest.

For your entertainment, I‘ve enclosed a few of the texts back and forth, between the two married, cheating lovers (my wife and the other man). Many of you will recognize the personalities from your own experiences I bet.  They aren‘t in any particular order - they‘re all kind of the same anyway (other than the explicit ones, which I‘ll leave out). Any text in caps is from me.

Gina, I‘ve enjoyed your and others‘ posts and agree with you.   It‘s aburd that so many people assume something must be wrong with us or we‘ve failed somehow because our partners cheated on us.  That‘s seldom the case and we are living proof of it.  

It‘s not just people‘s ignorance of human psychology that disturbs me.  That‘s bad enough.  What really burns my butt is that they try to justify cheaters‘ self-serving, irresponsible, wildly destructive behavior.  They seem not to see it for what it is, but I wonder.  Cheating isn‘t mentally healthy, socially constructive behavior.  It‘s antisocial behavior.  It hurts people terribly, including children.  It destroy lives and tear families apart.  It results in nightmarish divorce and custody battles, huge financial loss, substance abuse, psychiatric hospitalization, lost wages and unemployment, partner violence, fatal accidents, suicide and murder. 

How is any of this glamorous and romantic?  Can so many people really believe such outlandish crap?  Yes, they can.  Cheaters believe it.  It shows where their heads are.

How can anyone who knows the real-life consequences of cheating justify it in any way?  How dare they point the finger at betrayed partners rather than at those directly responsible, whose willing, voluntary actions bring about such hellish consequences?  

People can whine and divert and split hairs and cry ‘foul‘ till they‘re blue in the face.  Nothing justifies cheating and only cheaters are responsible for cheating.  They want to do it.  They choose to do it.  They continue to do it.  They know the terrible risks they‘re taking with others‘ lives, but do it anyway.   In my opinion, they‘re as selfish, irresponsible and unloving as people who know they have AIDS but continue to have unprotected sex with multiple partners.  

Their actions show a shocking lack of respect and concern for themselves and others.  They also reveal how deformed and ugly cheaters are on the inside, under their shiny false exteriors.  The last thing they want others to see is how insecure and self-serving they are, and how unloving.  That‘s the antithesis of the image they‘re trying to create and pass of as the ‘real‘ whomever. 

If cheaters believed their behavior were healthy and normal and justified, and weren‘t afraid others might see them as they really are, they‘d be completely open about what they do.  That‘s not the case.  They lie and lie and lie some more.  The more and longer they cheat and lie, the uglier they feel and the more they try to hide it.  The devil doesn‘t make them do it.  We don‘t, either.  They do it.  They‘re stuck in a vicious downward spiral of their own making.  

Cheaters have hundreds, maybe thousands of opportunities to stop that downward spiral by jumping off, but choose not to.  They‘re enjoying the ride, while it lasts, and don‘t give a damn where it‘s taking them and those who love and trust them.   They value temporary thrills and ego boosts more than the love, respect and wellbeing of those closest to them.   Their values.  Their choices. 

Cheaters like to think (and try to convince others) that they cheat because they‘re more passionate and highly-sexed than the rest of, and more courageous and independent-minded.  In other words, they want us to think they‘re a cut above the herd.  They aren‘t.  They‘re the runts of the litter.  They suck hind tit.  Not only that, they‘re so emotionally crippled and morally blind they don‘t see it.

Cheaters don‘t cheat to fulfill sexual needs, though they want to believe that, and want us to believe it.  They cheat to fill gaping black holes in themselves, using others like objects to plug themselves up.  But human beings aren‘t objects and we can‘t fill others‘ holes, or use them to fill ours.  Try as we might, no matter how long and hard we deceive ourselves and others, it can‘t be done.     

I took responsibility for my actions throughout my marriage, and often my husband‘s.  He didn‘t.  He blamed me for his behavior.  When I pointed out how illogical and wrong he was, and backed up my assertions with evidence, he then claimed his cheating ‘just happened,‘ as if he had no control over his words and actions.  But he did have control, full control.  He plotted his actions down to the smallest detail, to avoid discovery.  I found phrases he‘d jotted down in his day planners, things he intended to tell the OW.  He formed saccharine, meaningless symbols that he knew would be effective in manipulating her.  That‘s love?

It‘s clear that some people want to normalize cheating and make it seem like a healthy, natural response to betrayed partners‘ alleged unhealthy, abnormal behavior.  That‘s the same b.s. that spews from the mouths of cheaters, including my ex.  People who try to justify cheating are either gullible fools for taking the word of confirmed liars as truth (much more gullible than we were), or have ulterior motives they‘re afraid to reveal.  

I suspect many people who try to find fault with betrayed partners are themselves liars, frauds and/or cheaters, getting more cheap thrills at our expense.  They‘re not the winners and beautiful people they imagine.  That‘s why they lie 24/7 and try to put us down.   What‘s really funny is how they take themselves and their ‘love affairs‘ sooo seriously, and think they see through us.  They don‘t have a clue who we are.  They don‘t know who they are. 

Getting off my soapbox now.  I‘m not sorry for my long post.  If people aren‘t interested in my opinion they can move on.  Thanks for this thread.  It‘s heartening to know so many thinking, conscientious people see through the myths and stereotypes about us.  

Wilding

I agree with your beef.  I think some cheaters are doing it not because of problems in their marriage, but because of their own issues.

I am tired of feeling guilty, like it was my fault. I am very attractive, intelligent, funny and supportive. Our sex life was a fairly active one.

But still, he finds it necessary to look elsewhere.

Thanks for sharing those entertaining e-mails with us, Nazdrave.   Excuse me while I prop up the toilet seat and lose my cookies.

The smarmy email correspondence between my ex and his ‘true love‘ that I found was just as revolting.   These people are living in lala land.  They‘re utterly deluded.

I don‘t have copies of everything they wrote but remember it well.  In one email my husband compared himself to (president) Thomas Jefferson and compared his soul-meat to Maria Conway, one of Jefferson‘s mistresses.  Talk about narcissistic delusions of grandeur. 

When I looked into Narcissistic Personality Disorder later, after reading about it on an infidelity support group, I realized my husband had all nine traits of NPD (a person only has to have five to be diagnosed with it) and many traits associated with other serious personality disorders, including Antisocial, Paranoid, Schizoid and Obsessive-Compulsive.

He‘s a former counselor but rejected therapy, saying it would be ineffective because he knew all their (therapists‘) ‘tricks.‘  Yep, that‘s what therapists do, play a bunch of tricks on people to get their jollies.  

Now I know why he never sought treatment for his problems.  He was afraid of being found out.  Also, he simply didn‘t care about me and our children.  Unlike some cheaters, he didn‘t even pretend to make an effort or convince me he was trying to change.  That‘s how little he respected me.

I suspect many cheaters are personality-disordered.  I prefer the term "character disordered" to describe those with NPD and AsPD, like my ex.

When I married him at 23, I promised to love and honor him until death parted us.  I didn‘t promise to let him betray my trust and treat me like dirt, or fulfill his every whim and desire at my expense.  I didn‘t promise to let him mold me into a mockery of my real self so he could look good and feel like a big man.   I didn‘t promise to let him project his ugly crap on me, or steal my identity and pretend he was like me and shared my values.  He wasn‘t like me and didn‘t share my values.  

I was loving, kind, smart, creative, pretty, sexy, a devoted mother, a great cook, hard worker and much more.  The OW couldn‘t touch me.  I was the finest package of goods he ever had, and ever will have, but he threw me away for a lump of fool‘s gold that crumbled in his hands.

The funny and ironic thing is, in the end, after 32 years of his blaming and fault-finding and threats to divorce me, I was the one who demanded a divorce.  Then, his story about me changed.  It was entirely different from the one he‘d told the OW, about his ‘affectionless marriage‘ and frigid, frumpy, demanding, boring wife. 

Testing him, I asked him why he wanted to stay married to me all those years rather than divorce me, if I were really the person he claimed (frigid, prudish, mean, bitchy, demanding, etc.) and told the OW.  I reminded him that our kids were grown  now and he even had a hot, sexy babe (not) who‘d been waiting for him to divorce me the last 16 years.  I told him that now he could have it all, everything he really wanted all those years when he was ‘trapped‘ with me, everything he destroyed our marriage and our children‘s happy memories to get.  

Suddenly, I was the most beautiful, sexy woman he‘d ever known.  He insisted he had stayed with me because he‘d always loved me.  Unable to tolerate any more of his b.s., I laughed in his face and told him where he could put it.   I urged him to run to his soulmate Maria Conway and tell it to her, once I finished dumping him. 

Then I became the wicked old witch again.  I was a vicious, frigid, gold-digging emotional cripple who‘d never done anything ‘worth ****‘ for our family.  He spat in my face.  I just stood there a moment, then walked away.  I wasn‘t shocked.  I wasn‘t even angry or offended.  It was logical behavior for a man with the emotional IQ of an infant.  But that‘s an insult to infants, so I take it back.   

One of these days I‘ll dig out a copy of a letter my ex wrote the OW and post it here.  It still boggles my mind that a middle-aged woman (a lawyer!) would swallow such empty flattery and nonsense, not just for a few weeks or months, but for nearly two decades - knowing the man who wrote it was a liar and a traitor to his own family.  

Most people seem to have no idea how many horribly messed-up individuals are out here, appearing to be whom they‘re not.  We all have our dark sides, but this is surreal. 

I‘m really on a roll now!  

You wrote this, Gina:  

And, lets‘ not forget the new cow/old cow defense (there is a book with this title), as if women never contemplate the fact that they have sworn to be with one man for eternity? People don‘t think women never get overwhelmed with that thought from time to time? As if wives never have other opportunites or temptations? (Or husbands if the shoe is on the other foot).

I like men and enjoy their company, a lot.  They‘re different and fascinate me.  I like their bodies and scent and how they talk and move.  Often I like how they think, which is just different enough to be interesting and make for a challenging discussion.  

What I don‘t like is the ones who look down on us rather than treat us as equals, who try to control and manipulate us and make us perform for them, who expect us to be someone we‘re not.   I don‘t like the ones who think they own us body and soul once we marry them, or in any other way.  I also don‘t like jealous, cowardly, bullying, sneaking ones.  They‘re a huge turn-off.  I feel the same way about possessive, control freak women.

It‘s always bugged me how many people think women aren‘t strongly sexual creatures, especially once we get married and have children.  What hogwash.  Past adolescence, I can‘t remember a time when I didn‘t like sex and how good it felt.  I enjoyed it to the hilt.  LOL!   Guys didn‘t have to pressure me into it.  If they treated me well and turned me on, I wanted it as much or more than they did.  I de-virginized a few, too.  Call me a slut. 

People who think teenaged girls are only looking for affection when they engage in sex are WRONG.   Most of us didn‘t have to be seduced into having sex.  Ha!  Not this one, and not most women I know.  I know from long experience that most of us don‘t fit into that pristine little pigeonhole some people want to cram us into. 

Geez, even tiny baby girls masturbate.  Are so many people so far removed from reality they don‘t see that?  It seems so.  I think they refuse to see it and talk about it because they‘re freaked out about pedophilia and such stuff, and teen pregnancy.  Hey, that happened to me, too.  It happened because I enjoyed sex and we didn‘t have birth control.  I accidentally got pregnant.  I didn‘t do it because I had low self-esteem or wanted a dolly to play with or was trying to get welfare.  Give me a BREAK!!   Just because some people have ulterior motives for everything they do doesn‘t mean most of us do.  That‘s projection.

I loved sex, and still do.  That‘s one of the main reasons I dumped the ex.  I wasn‘t getting any.  Many, many times I lusted after other men when I was married to that cold, porn-addicted bastard.  I emotionally cheated on him left and right and then some.  I came skin-close to having sex with other guys.   Then I realized what I was doing to my family and myself, and backed off and quit my evil ways.  I‘m passionate but do have self-control.

If I‘d known my husband was cruelly, sadistically depriving me of sex to punish me (for being myself) and watch me hurting, I‘d have left ages ago.  But I didn‘t.  So shoot me for it.  Hang me from the highest tree because I thought I married a normal man, not some psycho perv from hell.  He surely fooled everyone else!! 

The OW still doesn‘t know about his hard-core porn addiction and Viagra.  Unless she‘s reading this.  If you‘re reading this, Lintnit, did you know the whole time he was porking you on the side and denying me sex he was jerking off with porn every day?  I think not.  He loved his porn and right hand a lot more than he loved me and our children, so you can guess where you were on the totem pole. 

His bitch couldn‘t meet his ‘needs‘ any more than I did.  He played the big, liberal stud, but he actually saw sex as low and dirty and shameful.  That‘s why he ended up only having it with porn videos and hoes, in secret.  His shame-based patriarchal upbringing didn‘t help his attitude.

Also, men who blather about their so-called frigid wives never want to talk about why we started pushing them away.  They don‘t want outsiders to know why we became cold toward them, least of all their male buddies and stupid, gullible OW.   They don‘t want their buds and manholes to know the truth, that they‘re verbally and physically abusive, or drunken, whiny, repulsive, bleary-eyed sots, or slobbering over porn in cyberspace every chance they get.  The truth makes them look weak and unmanly.  Which they are, in my opinion. 

I‘d like to see my ex or any man have half-a-dozen orgasms in under an hour, without porn or even building up a sweat.  Don‘t they wish?  How do they think women got on back in olden days when we were out gathering with our babies tied to our backs, while our mates were off killing Bambis and bopping OW with clubs and otherwise proving their virility?  Being feminine isn‘t about sucking up to men. 

Men invented this Madonna-whore and submissive sex object porn crapola, not women.  Some women are so desperate to attract men they go along with it.   I‘ve never had that problem.  As for our alleged ‘penis envy,‘ are people serious? 

Gina, I feel your pain! I had to look at the originator because I felt like I wrote the post. 

I was married for 30 years and I did it all too. I had a great job, we had plenty of toys. We had a great sex life, etc, etc, etc.

The problem was my ex‘s ego. As he turned 50, not 1 woman could satisfy his ego.  Thus we divorced. Not once, not twice, but 3 times in 5 years he cheated.  The women he screwed were trash too. When confronted he was ashamed of them. We went to counseling. That was a waste of money.

Yes his siblings love me too. His siblings do not speak to him. They still call me once a week and have for the last 3 years.  I‘ve been divorced 3 years.

I have many friends that are divorced. Most of the divorced women I know do say it was their fault because they didnt like sex.  

My ex calls me about 3 times a month and apologizes constantly.

What made me feel good is that he says it was his fault and never mine. He says when a woman flirted with him he could not control his impulses.

I feel exactly like you do!  

 I have told Gina the same thing, I felt like I was reading my own story when I read her posts.  Gina I also can relate to your post about how your husband tries to have sex...mine does the same thing.  I also feel like a revenge affair is in order.  Where I work, there are tons of men and I also have been asked out and have gotten phone numbers put on my windshield.  So I can relate.

But I was wondering NJ56...you are in your life where I feel like I should be in regards to divorce and all.  How was it actually leaving your H and separating the children from mom and dad into separate houses?  Was it the hardest decision to make?  I am trying so desperately to make a decision on what to do.  My h cheated a total of 5 times in 5 years, I filed and we split for a year, but I went back before divorce was final.  SInce going back it has happend again and maybe twice in the last 3 years.  I feel like it will never stop and I am getting sick just looking at him and when he tries to kis me...ugh....I have the same excuses Gina has.  But outside of his cheating he is awesome.  We get along great.  He does everything around the house laundry cleaning etc. is good to the kids....its almost like we would be better friends.

NJ56 Will you know when the time is right to leave?  I heard when you dont cry anymore then its time to leave.  I dont cry ever anymore.  I am strong.  My biggest issue is splitting up the family.  SO if you wouldnt mind telling us how your divorce went that would be awesome.

It wasn‘t easy to end my marriage because I‘d invested so much of myself in it and had so many illusions about him.  We were together, in all, nearly 35 years.  For most of my life, ever since I was 20, he thought he owned me body and soul.  He was so wrong!

Years earlier, I had told him how much it hurt my feelings that he only wanted to have sex (it wasn‘t making love) when he‘d been looking at porn.  He lashed out a me and called me a frigid prude. I brought it up very gently because I didn‘t want to hurt him, but he acted as if I‘d attacked him.  From then on, he refused to have sex with me.  He told me I‘d made him unable to get aroused.  I knew I wasn‘t a frigid prude.  That was a huge red flag but I didn‘t see it.  I was too brainwashed and afraid. 

I also told him to get rid of his porn before our children saw it, but he refused.  A few weeks later, they and their friends turned on the VCR and a porn video was in it.  By the time I found out, they‘d been watching it for over ten minutes. When he got home I lit into him and told him to get his nasty, misogynistic crap out of our house. 

To men like him, a ‘good‘ wife has no backbone.  She puts up with anything her husband does and comes whinging back for more.  He destroyed our sex life with his abuse and porn (i didn‘t know he was also cheating), but I wouldn‘t tolerate him poisoning our kids.  He finally got a lockbox to put some in and hid the rest.  He still refused to throw out his precious porn.   He loved it more than he did me and our kids.  What a wimp and sicko.

When I discovered he was cheating, it was the last straw.  That proved he had NO love and respect for me and didn‘t give a damn about our marriage and family.  All he cared about was not getting caught.  It showed me he was a fake, a weak, pathetic excuse for a man.  It told me all I needed to know about his true character. 

Unlike the OW, I‘m not desperate.  She was willing to settle for a worthless p.o.s., but I wasn‘t.  People assume all sorts of false, unkind things about us when our husbands cheat on us.  Screw them.  They‘re fools to believe anything cheaters say about us. 

If we were really the old balls and chains they tell OW and others, they‘d divorce us and marry their sexy, perfect OW. But we aren‘t what they say, and their OW are f‘d up losers like them.  Most don‘t have the balls to leave us anyway, and it‘s not because they care about their kids.  In most cases, we‘re the ones who leave them! 

I‘d rather live alone the rest of my life than be married to a backstabbing fraud who lies and cheats and is addicted to porn and verbally abuses me.  He‘s not a sex addict.  He‘s addicted to orgasms and the thrill of cheating.  He just uses women to jerk off in.  He was sexually and emotionally messed-up when I met him, but I didn‘t know it.  I didn‘t turn him into a deviant or a pathological liar.  I didn‘t make him shallow and greedy and cowardly.

When I caught him cheating, he and his whore were already planning their next luxurious vacation together.  He was also going to buy an expensive new pimpmobile to impress her and others with what a cool dude he was.  Now that I‘m no longer contributing my paychecks to his secret cause, and he has to pay me spousal support until he‘s 65, he can‘t afford to live in the style to which he was accustomed during our marriage.  Oh, waaahhh. 

Even if I still loved him I‘d push him away if he wanted sex. I know where that thing has been.  But I don‘t love him, not anymore.  He killed our marriage all by himself.  I just gave it a decent burial.  Now he‘s free to spend the rest of his life with his precious porn and whatever dirty old twats he can scrounge up.  Hope they enjoy his cold, boring personality and constant whining.  I‘m sure they‘ll be thrilled when he shows them his big unfinished house with its vast expanse of weedy lawn and master bedroom that reeks of farts.

He claimed he pulled me up, as if I were beneath him, but he really dragged me into a white trash hell that he created.  I‘m glad to be rid of the loveless freak.  He was a horrible husband and father and proved it.

My heart goes out to all of you in this situation.  There‘s no good reason to tolerate such mistreatment.  In the long run it will only hurt you and your kids.

Hello "needtobestrong";

My ex and I did go to counseling together. He couldnt stop the impulses to have sex with other women, this occurred when he was heavily drinking. Now when he wasnt drinking and riding his harley with the guys, he was fine. I had 2 back surgeries in 4 years so guess what, I couldnt ride on the back with him.  

I eventually went to counseling alone.  I asked some very direct questions when I initially spoke to counselors to set up an appointment and this is what I asked; 

- I know I cannot not save my ex from his impulses. How can you help me? So in other words, I can only help myself and owe it to myself as I struggle to improve and get off this merry-go-round. 

- Do you counsel from a biblical sense? I do not want to be preached and told to pray for answers.

My realizations after 6 months of counseling?

When we say "he is such a great father, he also cleans and cooks BUT he cheats" The but absolutely discounts the praises.  The but negates the entire sentence. Think about it. It is just like me saying to you; "you do such a good job at taking care of your children but you cheat on your husband" 

I also tried to "make nicey nice". After his affairs I tried to pretend all was well in front of the children. I am not the clean up woman. Eventually I closed down emotionally to him.        

My children also realized I took a stand. They admired me for it. Now please realize my children were adults when we divorced. 

In the 5 years prior to our seperation I saved money, took nothing out of the household budget, but any bonuses I got I put away in my emergency fund. I saved all correspondence with the other women, phone records, bank statements, tax returns and kept a detailed diary of dates and times that things occurred in that last 5 years. all When we seperated I had enough money to hire a good attorney and live comfortably for 1 year. Also in that last 5 years I bought no big ticket items. Less to split at the time of equal distribution. 

Funny thing is that countless times I told him this is the last time. Of course he didnt believe it. 

He and I and our attorneys sat in a room together and when my attorney presented all of the evidence he and his attorney were green.  We called a 10 minute break. Him and his attorney came back in and asked what I wanted. I said a 75-25 split or this goes in front of a judge for him to decide.

It was seettled.  On the way out he said I planned all this And I said I sure did because I knew I had to save myself.