Category: Betrayal

“You” Statements

Blaming someone else makes you a victim. Victims are powerless people. Being powerless means that you have no control over a change. Therefore you’re at the mercy of the other person changing to get your need met. In order to get the other person to change, you will manipulate or try to control them. So, you introduce destructive behaviors into a situation in order to get your need met.

Cheaters blame the other person often. Non-scientifically, I would venture to guess that when someone is unfaithful to their spouse, they will 100% blame the other person in one way or another. I wrote about blame some time ago. Basically, the cheater will make a lot of “you” statements. Sounds a lot like these:

  • “You weren’t meeting my needs”
  • “You were not there for me”
  • “You didn’t care enough about me to take care of your physique”
  • “You didn’t surprise me”
  • “You weren’t pursuing me”
  • “You never paid me any attention”
  • “You made me feel lonely in our marriage”
  • “You don’t pick up your socks”

There are much better, non-blaming, non-controlling ways to say these things. There are ways to go about expressing feelings, needs and emotions without damaging the relationship

 

 

 

 

Subtle and subversive blame

I was chatting with one of my FB friends. We will call her Ainsley. She is going through a similar thing with her husband. Her hubby cheated a while back and treated her like shit. Now, she wants out and her husband is being super nice and saying he’s changed.

She messaged me this morning and what she hit on was so profound that I had to write about it.

Direct Blame

Any of you who’ve been through having an unfaithful spouse knows the direct blame game that they play. They make a lot of “you” statements and I wrote about blame here and here.  In a nutshell, the person who was faithful will often come out blaming themselves for the marital difficulties and even the affairs. Often, the faithful spouse will think, “I could have met their needs better. I could have been a better husband or wife. I could have done better.” That is all complete bullshit. And I wrote about not blaming yourself here.

“You” Statements are a form of direct blame.

  • You weren’t meeting my needs
  • You were distant
  • You never paid me attention

There are hundreds more. But they all mean the same thing. “You’re responsible for my actions.”  And that shit don’t play.  It’s too bad that we will take on that responsibility on ourselves. I did with Allie’s first affair.

Here’s where Ainsley’s messages to me today were so profound. I had a light bulb go off in my head reading through what she was saying.

Indirect – Subtle Blame

Ainsley said this to me today.

This is the bargaining tool my husband keeps using too. He has “changed”….they chose to do things that cannot be taken back knowing exactly what the consequences are of that action. So as much as my husband is trying to guilt me by saying he has changed and she [Allie]  is trying to do the same. It is not our fault.

For the past several months, Allie has been seemingly remorseful and repentant. She keeps telling me how much she has changed and how her eyes are open to what she did.

Here’s the subtle blame though and the profound part of Ainsley’s message. Basically because the cheater has “changed” they throw a lot of guilt your way because you haven’t accepted that change. You can’t see the “work” they’ve put in to be a better person. Here are some direct quotes from Allie to me via text. See if you can spot the subtle blame in each of these messages:

  • Meanwhile I’m loving you and praying for you
  • I am faithful and honest
  • I’m sorry for the things you’ve said to me (personal favorite)
  • Don’t you understand how sad I am over you and me?
  • I would do anything to take it back
  • I’m asking for you to be a safe place
  • I’m trying to be a strong person
  • I gave you my body as much as you wanted
  • I want to strive for wholeness with you
  • I was trying so hard to love you
  • How can you be so cruel. You bring up those things in relationships I have renounced and asked forgiveness for?
  • I have done everything I can to show you how sad I am over this
  • I have poured myself into this marriage
  • Everything I say gets used against me
  • I chose to trust you with heart broken feelings I have
  • All I have done is work on fixing me

Keep in mind, I think that Allie believes the things she is saying. But the underlying tone to each of these is quite intentional. They are blaming me for not accepting her back. Heck, she’s apologized. So, what more does she need to do?

She’s loved me and been strong and prayed for me. She’s poured herself out to me and renounced the multiple external relationships with other men. How in the world is it that I can’t accept that and just get over it?

That’s the blame. That the subversive, ugly part of this. Let me break it down to very simple terms:

She cheats and blames me. Then she says she’s sorry and blames me for not being willing to move on like it never happened.

Thank you Ainsley. Your messages over the past couple days are completely eye opening.

How to deceive a spouse

Deception.

Probably the single most damaging thing to a marriage relationship when there is infidelity is deception. You see deception requires an illusion. It requires that a partner trusts his spouse completely. He not only trusts her, but he believes her. He believes that there simply is NO WAY she would be the type of person to cheat. Wouldn’t happen.

The cheating spouse knows that he believes her 100%.  She knows that he trusts her which is the ONLY way that deception stands a chance. You see, if someone doesn’t trust another person, then they will do things to guard themselves. If you don’t trust your spouse for example, you may build up emotional walls, you might track their phone, you might pay careful attention to them to see their next move.

But when you believe and trust your spouse, you give them complete freedom and equality. You trust that with that freedom, that openness, and that equality they will take the responsibility to stay faithful.

synonyms:

swindle, defraud, cheat, trick, hoodwink, hoax, dupe, take in, mislead, delude, fool, outwit, lead on, inveigle, beguile, double-cross, gull; informal con, bamboozle, do, gyp, diddle, rip off, shaft, pull a fast one on, take for a ride, pull the wool over someone’s eyes, sucker, snooker, stiff

Without mutual respect, trust, honesty and openness, the relationship is not there. Not really. So much closeness is required to deceive a spouse. The scary part of this is that a husband may give all of his trust and belief to his wife and she’s plotting against him.

Once discovered, the deception can shatter his sense of reality. It is extremely damaging to say the least. The betrayed spouse can suffer from PISD (Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder) and they can have dangerous adrenaline and other hormone cocktails released in their bodies. The stress cannot be understated.

The reality is that a wife who purposely damages her husband’s sense of reality is immoral. The betrayed spouse’s sense of truth, significance, certainty, respect, trust, honor, dignity and love are all destroyed instantly. There is not really an adequate way to heal from it.

Affairs and deception are the best way to destroy another person. They change the relationship forever. Period. You can never go back and have any semblance of what was there before. That is gone. Even remorse doesn’t “fix” it because of the lies and deception.

It is ugly. Hideous. It is insidious. It partners with the enemy of morality and it destroys.

Someone who trusts another person with everything is vulnerable. And in that vulnerability, their spouse betrays them. That part is the most damaging.

 

The end of my divorce journey

It has been nearly a year since the discovery of Allie’s affair with Mark. And about five months since she confessed her affair with her boss Derek. As of February 3rd, 2019 we are officially divorced. Eighteen years, lots and lots of history. Living in four different countries, giving birth in three different countries and a life together.

With the divorce, I feel that I have reached the last chapter in this blog’s journey. Not much else to say on here except a few parting thoughts.

First, when my spouse cheated on our marriage and betrayed me by breaking every promise she’d ever made, she chose that by herself. She owns that. Let’s just pretend that our marriage was totally miserable. Well then I was in the same miserable marriage right? And I kept my commitments. I was faithful. I leave with my honor and my dignity.

And if I a gonna be with an immoral woman, then I might as well just be single. Being married is hard. You swallow a lot of shit for the sake of the commitment and for the marriage. I changed drastically to walk on the egg shells she had me on. Nothing seemed good enough and she always wanted more.

Now, I have come to grips with the story. There’s no changing it. No going back. No wondering if I made the right decision. I am 100% satisfied that I chose correctly by going through with divorce from Allie.

My feelings are expressed. My heart was laid to bare. It helped to write this. Hurt to write it. I have sobbed through some of these entries.

Now, I am done. I don’t have tears any longer and can hardly believe that she’s the same person I fell in love with and loved for nearly 20 years. But it is over now, I am looking forward. Moving on. Living my own dreams. Loving my sons. And growing myself into new and different places.

The healing that has taken place over the last year changed me. Quite possibly I will live my days as a single man. Content to do my things, hang out with my friends, sing karaoke, drink a cider every once in a while and date as it happens.

That being said, I think I will stop writing on this site and move to my new interests. This has been healing. This has been comfort. This has been a place to let it all out.

 

The story that needs to be told

Allie is so manipulative. So toxic. So dirty. As you know she had multiple affairs while we were married.

One of her affairs was with her former boss. Derrick is what we call him here. Derrick owns a pretty successful home health company where he does physical therapy for home-bound patients. He contracts with two different home health providers as the exclusive PT for a certain county in the state we live in.

Allie started her affair with him when she started the job. She would schedule time in her patient schedule to spend an hour with him. And then come home and be with me and our kids. Yep. Sick right?

I noticed some things that were “off” when she would speak about him with me. It was like she was talking about an ex-boyfriend rather than a boss. And I did find a couple of inappropriate texts. But that aside, Allie was pretty stealth in keeping her affair secret.

I don’t know what happened exactly with the two of them, but Allie says she ended it on her own. (and she wanted me to be proud of her) Allie almost immediately got into her affair with Mark in January of 2018.

So, for the next 11 months, Allie kept working for Derrick, while having an affair with Mark and “trying” to stay married to me.

Summer of 2018

Allie starts talking about Derrick a lot in the late summer of 2018. She actually confessed their affair on Labor Day 2018.  She painted a picture of him sexually harassing her. She’s always the victim. The picture wasn’t true. He didn’t harass her. She willingly participated.

Anyway, Allie starts communicating directly with one of the companies that Derrick contracts with about working directly for them. This would effectively take about 60% of Derrick’s business from him. Still painting the idea to me (and to herself) that Derrick is incompetent. She justifies her actions saying that she deserves those patients because he harassed her into having an affair. Blame. Justification.

She gets the job

Allie convinces the home health company to hire her directly as an employee and takes a huge chunk of Derrick’s business from him.

Now, do I feel sorry for Derrick? Yes and no. I don’t feel sorry for him because he shouldn’t have been messing with another man’s wife. But in a way I do feel sorry for him he has a special needs child from his first marriage and works to support her and pay all the bills.

Derrick was suckered by my manipulative ex. But he also chose to do the cowardly thing and participate. Real men stand up to married women and refuse to play that game. It cost him. It benefited Allie.

Allie used Derrick to get experience, knowledge and ultimately his business. Derrick’s dumb ass allowed her pussy to convince him he was great. What a sucker.

Mark apologizes

So I got a call from Mark about two weeks ago. He called me and we spoke for about 45 minutes. He called to apologize.

What?

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. When my phone rang, I had him saved as “Piece of Shit.” So as it’s ringing, I thought to myself “this ought to be good.” And I picked up.

What followed was what really seemed like a man who is completely broken. He was quiet, humble, reserved. Far from the proud, cheating dickhead, I met back in Crossfit. He apologized to me. He said he was sorry for what he’d done to my children and for the harm that they’ve had to face. He apologized for the future emotional damage they may have to face.

He said that he works to support Carrie and his four kids and that two of his children haven’t spoken to him in over a year. I remember writing about the monetary costs he would have to face for getting a little side pussy from Allie. But he may have to face a lifelong cost of the loss of his relationship with his kids. He didn’t express how his relationship was with the other two. However, from my experience, kids either outright reject this kind of behavior or they cling to the errant parent almost in hopes that the parent will change back. Like their love will overwhelm the parent and change them into a decent human.

Mark is paying a HUGE price for being unfaithful to his wife of 20 years. A price that I would never want to pay. It’s also a foreshadowing of Allie’s future. I am already seeing and hearing little things that one of my sons says about her. I can easily see a time in the future where he rejects his mom completely. Perhaps my other sons will too.

While I don’t say negative things about their mom in front of them, I will tell them facts about her if they ask. So later, if they ask about her affairs, I will tell them. Of course, I don’t have to tell them that she had them. She confessed the affair with Mark in front of them and has since “apologized” to them about the affairs in her desperate attempt to get attention.

An interesting email

Last year (2018) I attended counseling with Allie. We had two counselors who sat in on all of the sessions. Towards the end of counseling, I was well aware that the marriage was over. I had just found about Allie’s third affair with her boss Derek. I would say that was the nail in the coffin, but it was already over. That just was one MORE reason for me to follow through with a divorce from her.

Allie sent this email to the counselors right after I found out about her third affair. Read this and just enjoy the sickness.

So her “plan” was to keep Derek a secret from me for five more years because by then, we’d have a thriving marriage. By then, I would have “worked on myself” and become a man she could love and stay faithful to?

Then read the last two lines. “Am I asking too much?”  Yes. You cheated on your husband at least three times!!  Now, you’re asking him to stay with you? What the fuck?

“Does that sound like entitlement?” Even she cannot believe the bullshit that comes out of her own mouth.

A letter never sent

Here’s a letter I never sent to Allie. Just some thoughts really.

Allie,

I have heard the phrase “be true to yourself” batted around in the millennial generation’s vernacular.  I think that it should be rephrased :

  • “Be honest with yourself.”
  • “Be honest to yourself.”
  • “Don’t tell yourself lies.”  
  • “Don’t believe the lies that you tell yourself”
  • “Don’t be afraid of the truth that is inside of you.”

Over the last five months I have had to face some realities about myself, our marriage, and about you. I know, I know. You’ll say, “don’t make judgements about me.  Stay on your side of the street.” I disagree however. We must look at each other as well if only to see if we’re telling ourselves the truth about one another.

I think that as I evaluate our lives and our marriage together, one thing stands out. In a conversation we had where I said  “you’ve never so much as mentioned a negative word about Mark.” Never a word about his character or any flaws therein.

So my belief is that deep down, you have a “soul mate” complex happening inside of your head. Basically the belief that Mark is your soul mate and if only you’d met earlier in life, none of this bad marriage stuff would be happening. You could meet his sexual needs, he would have no reason to cheat on you like he did Carrie. She was to blame for his straying from his marriage. Right?

You’ve dropped a lot of hints to me about this. You probably don’t even realize you’re doing it, but I see it. I see the duplicity. I can sense it.  I know you. Sucks to be known like that doesn’t it?

  • You have said that you adored him.
  • You have wondered if your time together meant something.
  • You have wanted to call him to get validation.
  • You called it a “relationship.”  
  • You told him that you love him and you meant it.
  • You had sex with him multiple times and that has to mean something doesn’t it?
  • You risked your whole marriage for him.
  • And when I asked you about why no negative stuff, you said, “I don’t know him that well.”  

My question to you is, “what are you afraid of?”  Are you afraid that if you give up your marriage, Mark may reject you? So, you’ll fight hard for me because I can be counted upon? Because I am reliable and will always be there?  

I remember this same thing came up with your ex-boyfriend Shawn. You described him as unreliable and said that you loved how you could count on me. That I was responsible. Women do this.  It’s weird to guys like me. Women like men who treat them like something to be used. They like the “bad boy” who ignores them and creates that emotional distance. It makes women crazy that their looks and their body can’t get them what they want. They flirt, flaunt, show off, etc.  Then when men take advantage of that, they get mad that the man was “just using them.” It’s sad really. I see so many women who literally sell their souls to get some attention, some empty compliments and affirmations from a cute guy.

My assertion in this is that you don’t want to be HONEST with yourself or me about Mark. Be HONEST. Even if it’s scary. Taking the chance with Mark, means giving me up completely. You are fully aware of that. So, you fight for me. Try to convince me that I am the one and he was just a “symptom” or some trauma.You wish I had a return policy where you could go all in with him and if it turns out that he won’t truly love you back, you can just have me and your family back.

I will say this here and now:  Mark doesn’t love you and won’t ever love you. Sure, you could have a relationship for a few years and it would probably be fun for you. You might even be convinced that you did the right thing by giving up on your marriage. Then after a few years, the fall out would happen when you do finally know him well enough to see his flaws. He has them. You just can’t see them through the blinding light of limerence.

But life is about risks isn’t it? You’ll never know until you take them. You won’t know if you’re letting your soul mate get away to take the “sure thing.” In the affair, you took your risk and Mark risked everything for you. Well, he did his part. He is divorced now. Maybe he’s just waiting for you on the other side. Waiting for you to fly in on your white dove so that you two can live out your days in bliss