Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady's Survival Guide

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That’s how I feel exactly. In fact, it wasn’t even the cheating that bothers me to this day. It’s that he left me during cancer. And that is just one example of him not showing up for life events. Anne, your story reminds me of my father, who caught his first wife cheating. He worked 2nd shift and lived in a 2nd floor apartment with her and their two young boys 1 and 2 (my half brothers). He suspected something was going on and one night before he left for work, he put baby powder down on the stairs to the apartment. He left work early that night and wouldn’t you know it. Men’s footprints were headed up to their apartment. Trying to convince you to settle the divorce without an attorney is straight out of the narcissistic cheater’s playbook, too. Not all of them start there but many do–flip to the charm channel, claim that they plan to take the high road and be fair, then claim that you want to waste money on an attorney, implying that your goal is to screw them over. Classic manipulation and blameshifting, all in the hope of maintaining control over you and screwing you over in the process. So for you dads trying to fight the good fight, please keep it up. Your daughters need to see that so they won’t end up with all those dreaded “Daddy issues” and your sons need to see how men used to try and hold their families together and that this is something that needs to return to society. I’m not advocating the 50’s model of family and am a firm believer in womens’ rights. Rather that typically each parent brings their strengths to the table and the whole thing starts to wabble and tilt when part of that stabilizing force is removed.

They need both parents to model cooperative and companionable behavior, but if one parent can’t, the other has to fill in those shoes. I got my older son involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters because I recognize how much he needs a positive male role model in his life and that he won’t get that from his dad.A friend of mine nailed it this weekend while we were talking about my baby. She asked what ex would do if, in some distant time from now, I met someone and the kids wanted to call him dad. I said I’d get a helmet and telescope, because the debris and pyrotechnics of ex’s head exploding would be seen from space. Even though I have no time/interest in dating now, she brings up a good point. Even if they don’t call him dad, which I’d support, I wonder how it will feel to a narc like him when someone else takes his place as a decent partner for me and decent parent for my little ones… So very true, and the study only focuses on women. However I can tell you first hand from the male perspective being cheated on is identical. The problem that I am seeing is most men just give up during the proceedings. I have no clue why but even if the woman did the cheating they just seem to say ok take what you want and get this over with. This study is great for outlining the stages that women go through. It applies to male chumps too. So rather than skeining I can compare my serial x-cheater to a Tree Shrew… I lost my job shortly after the wedding. Did he comfort me? Nope. In fact 8 years later he listed that as one of the many bad things that happened during our marriage that made it too hard to continue. Tracy, I saw a lot of your observations in this article. RIC still influences these studies as there was some subtle influence of that interspersed in the text.

Our daughter broke her collar bone. I took her to urgent care. He texted me for updates while he sat at home. Hell, I even got a wake up slap from Chumplady when I was debating weather to cut my X off of alimony. She made some very valid points which are the same ones I mentioned above! Theyve been dating since June 2018, but he still calls and bothers me plus said—its not a crime to NOT divorce you. Crazy! He lied about wanting a kid and didng inform me he had ED. Told me we were waiting for marriage for sex. Bullshit! 6 months into marriage I slipped into depression and wondered why me??My ex’s father was a very emotionally distant father. A professor who was always too busy for the kids writing his books and articles. My ex used to say that the only thing that his father knows to converse with him about is sports, never any other topic. In 15 years of my experience with my in-laws, I can confirm this to be true. An avid baseball fan, yet my father-in-law never tossed a ball with his sons. Now my STBXH is an avid baseball fan who can spew stats and once ran an official team blog, yet he has never signed up his own kids to play baseball, nor did he coach baseball when I signed them up. I am the one that tosses a ball and bats with them in the yard. my ex also had some really wonderful qualities. and i loved him so very much. i loved the way he looked, i loved his hair, his eyes, the shape of his mouth, his body, the way he laughed, the sound of his voice, the way he walked/ran/moved, even the way he smelled. Now, Ive told this new woman (57)about his life and our marriage plus how he is giving me a hassle for the “not filed” divorce. She doesnt care and flaunts around town with him bc techmically we are married, but “not together”, he spends lots of time with her, and he lives with brother not ME. Crazy wench. She thinks she has a prize, but he is a damaged, self-serving, passive aggressive, arrogant dummy. I can’t blame myself any more that you can blame yourself. You can’t force comfort on a person. You tried and he refused to accept it. How is that on you? When it comes to cheating, a lot of the attention is focused on cheaters - their unmet needs or their challenges with monogamy. But Tracy Schorn (aka Chump Lady) lampoons such blameshifting and puts the focus squarely on the cheated-upon (chumps) and their needs. Full of solid advice that champions self-respect, Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life offers a fresh voice for chumps who want (and need) a new message about infidelity. This book will offer advice on stupid sh*t cheaters say and how to respond, rookie mistakes of the recently chumped and how to disarm your fears, why chumps take the blame and how to protect yourself, and more.