Chump Lady asked if any of us had experienced DV either during or after the cheating.
Ugh.
Yes.
It was my turning point. My two younger kids were home for their summer uni breaks.
He knocked me unconscious when we were cohabiting, but he was openly “dating” the latest Schmoopie.
In 31 years, he’d NEVER shown a violent side. But I called him out on a lie (I had a legal order that Schmoopie/Trinket was not allowed on any of our properties, and I had proof she had been in my home overnight.) His eyes blackened. He dropped me on the bathroom floor on my head. I woke to find my cotton dressing gown completely shredded, his hands holding me down by the neck.
I was scared to report his assault to police. He’d already got ahead of the narrative. I was the irrational discarded partner who was making shit up.
My employer worked out what was happening when I showed up for work in long sleeves and polo neck in the middle of summer three days in a row. Insisted on time stamped photos of my extensive bruising. I was black and blue from my throat to my hips.
In case I ever wanted to press charges.
When your identity is built on independence, feminism, and a take no shit attitude, it’s terrifying to find you are too scared to report an assault.
But, I never pressed charges after my violent rape, either. I’m obviously a coward.
Instead, I did my people pleasing thing. Thinking I could ruin a “nice guy’s” future if I reported them.
Um. What???
Their actions. I wouldn’t be to blame. They did these terrible things to my body. To my psyche.
They. Did. These. Horrific. Things.
And I somehow excused them. By not intervening. By not reporting their abuse.
Women are raised to not rock the boat.
Fuck. That. Shit.
It’s embarrassing. You feel so ashamed. As a privileged, middle-class, white, heterosexual woman, you can’t believe this has happened to you.
Despite being who I am, I admit I was embarrassed that this had happened to me.
We had a couple of cancellations this morning. Winter hitting. Sick kids. Etc.
Being a Saturday morning, I wasn’t going to ask my skin therapist to do anything extra. She’s done all her cleaning and online learning. We had some good chats. We’ve become pretty close. Not inappropriately so. Just a nurturing relationship really.
It’s her one year anniversary with her boyfriend. He’s taking her to one of our best restaurants for dinner tonight. He’s a good lad. Seems really genuine.
And she shared her experience in contracting two STIs, from an ex.
So mad at him. He never informed her, but knew he had chlamydia and herpes.
Shared.
Ugh.
Of course, my memories have been swirling around my brain ever since.
Ugh.
Going to my gynaecologist to get a full STI screen after Leanne. Mid 40s. Mother of three teens whom I had been fastidious about educating about sexual health and keeping themselves safe. One sexual partner ever. My “life” partner.
She gently asked me why I felt the screening was necessary. The tears silently ran down my cheeks as I explained that my darling had been having an affair.
And that he had not used protection. That he was really angry at me when I said I was getting tested. Said I was trying to make out that Leanne was some kind of filthy whore. (I didn’t get that whole protect her honour bullshit even then!)
Um.
No comment there. I actually was just aware that she was a mid 40s single woman, who had had “several” sexual partners before Rog.
He screamed at me, “she’s meticulously clean and hasn’t been sleeping with anyone else!”
Jesus. Yeah, you can sanitise STIs away, Rog…
Okay. But I wasn’t meaning anything other than you didn’t use protection, I didn’t give consent to sleep with anyone other than you, and I believed you weren’t sleeping with anyone else. We both need to get tested.
He refused.
And was really, really angry with me.
I went. Got tested.
Cried. Ugh.
My gynaecologist was lovely. She said I was strong AF. That she was super proud of me. And that he was a pretty terrible person to put me at risk like that.
Another betrayed relates her experience with her doctor when she had to get tested…
Get tested. The doctor who did mine vented with me and called him a low life POS. It was actually a good experience.
Yeah. I got two infections. One eventually led to my cervical cancer. Despite loads of monitoring. I’m free and clear for nearly five years now. So thankful.
But it’s another layer to the trauma I found I was buried in after he was caught cheating. One of my worst fears, as the daughter of a closeted, married (to a woman) gay man who was outed in the AIDS era was getting an STI. It had a very real effect on me. I was adamant I would NEVER put myself at risk of contracting an STI. I never had sex with anyone but Rog in my life.
Trauma is an interesting, lingering beast. We can heal ourselves. Do the mahi. Be mindful. And grateful. But the trauma never fully leaves you. You just learn to manage it. To carry it in a safer position in your life than in the beginning when it keeps blowing up in your face.
But, I also know that it’s not entirely true. It might be, for him. But if that was me, I wouldn’t feel okay about what I had done.
I have talked with BG’s best mate many times. He cheated on his first wife over 20 years ago. And yes, he’s still with the woman he cheated with. They’re married. And seemingly in love. However, they live an ethically non-monogamous lifestyle. It’s not all plain sailing there. Andy has admitted to me several times that he has enormous regrets at what he did to his ex-wife. And the catastrophic effects it had on their two now adult children. One is mostly okay-ish now. The other is pretty messed up. He feels it’s his fault.
I understand how a cheating parent can affect the way you love. It affected me in a really significant way. Marriage seems like a farce.
I read these comments in reply to the “living his best life” remark, and they feel right to me.
He’s not. He’s a person with no morals, character, or integrity. And with adultery on his soul
He isn’t living his best life. He lost the best thing in his life, you. He sucks. You don’t. It really is as simple as that.
I dunno. I think Rog believes he did the right thing.
Somehow.
Like he had no choice but to cheat again. It’s pretty weird. But I know that’s how he justifies things in his head. How he has justified it to our mutual friends.
How he has justified it to Trinket.
Trinket? That I don’t get. No regrets whatsoever in her part in the death of what was once a seemingly very good partnership. A deep and love.
Around this time of the year (my first DDay was the 16th of May) I find myself recalling that horrific period in my life. It never goes away that trauma.
One minute I was in a multiple decade long, wonderfully fulfilling love story. Truth. Loyalty. Companionship. Passion. Best friends. Loads of commonalities. Tons of laughter. Three kids. Three intimate births. Three babymoons. Four lost pregnancies. He was the centre of my happy world.
Then BAM!
My darling was a lying, cheating stranger!
It felt like a nightmare I was sure I must be about to wake up from soon.
Not Norm.
Not my love.
Not my best mate.
Not the man I adored and never thought for a moment was capable of cheating on me. He loved me. He told me every day. We were super affectionate. We snuggled together on the couch every single night. He never walked past me without touching me. We kissed all the time.
What the fuck was this alternate universe???
But, he had been living a secret double life for at least a year and a half. As I drove out every morning, after we’d kissed goodbye, he’d be immediately texting or on the phone to his AP, Leanne. Often driving up to see her, or planning a dirty little rendezvous in our children’s beds, or the maimai. Anywhere they could.
So. When the affair was exposed, and he professed his profound shame and deep love for me, of course, he stopped any contact with Leanne, right?
Riiiiiiiight
No. No, he did not end contact with her.
I begged him to starve her of oxygen. Change his number. Never reply to her texts. Just stop.
But no.
Rog knew best. He “needed” to manage her.
Which meant lots more contact.
Now I know it was just cake. He didn’t want to put down the fork. The Leanne-Paula layer cake was just too delicious to leave.
I’m so mad at myself. I instinctively knew it was not okay. But, the most-stubborn-man-in-the-world knew a better way.
It utterly destroyed any last sliver of trust I may have been hanging on by.
Two years later, after he fucked her again, he admitted he was wrong in not changing his number.
But the reality is that cheaters are entitled. They think they can make up their own rules. The frission of two women “wanting” him. Too good to pass up.
I doubt he realised it at the time. But I think there’s a lot in that.
I dunno. I’ve never had two men wanting me at once. I’m far too loyal for that shit, to be honest.
And I thought about Trinket. What the fuck was she thinking? A partnered man. A proven cheater. Having yet another affair. Seems legit. I’d hook up with one of those.
And even better, he messaged me first thing, remembering the date, and how many years.
Roger never did either of those things.
And it wasn’t an easy thing to put a date on “the beginning” of us.
After all, I ghosted him for quite some time, after two very chaste lunch dates. Went on an overseas adventure, and reconnected a month or so after I returned.
I’m very grateful for his love.
But especially that he remembers. He cares. He prioritizes me.
Today, I replied to someone struggling with a new relationship after being betrayed.
And it sums up the disappointment I have felt in my current situation, not matching what my first 25 years in a relationship felt like….and the way I am working through those … changed(?) expectations.
I am in a new (4 years!) relationship, after over 30 years with the man I KNEW was the love of my life.
Lol.
It’s not the same.
There’s less “passion.”
I’ve struggled immensely with that.
But, I’ve accepted/realised lately that this man is steadfast. He supports. He shows up. He’s pretty wonderful. He sticks at this. Through thick and thin. He doesn’t feel threatened by my successes, assists with assuaging any failures.
No, we are not the kind of besties I thought my ex and I were. But we care deeply. We genuinely want the very best for each other. There’s no power imbalance.
I am so grateful.
I hope this person is there for you in the same way x
It’s incredibly hard.
I had the life I hoped and worked for.
But it was all an illusion. He never felt that way about me and the life we curated together.
I found a card he wrote me, yesterday. Dated a month before he connected with Trinket. So disingenuous.
It read… “everything good in my life comes from you. Everything bad in my life, I created alone. Meeting you was the best thing I ever did. You deserve so much more than I gave. I’m so sorry, Snooks. I hope I can fix this for you. For us. I’m so sorry.”
A big part of my Masters research was about emotional geographies and materialities of home.
Construction and deconstruction of.
Through the lens of romantic relationships.
It was hard.
But incredible.
And my darling friend, a long term blogger who posts far less these days, but who I have had a really wonderful connection with for a very long time, framed my recent itchy discomfort of seeing “stuff” – materialities – that I shared with Roger, ruined by his terrible misfortune in being flooded in February, in a really healthy way.
Rog took a lot of stuff from our home as he was transferring his love for me to Trinket. It was utter agony, arriving home after work some days, to find he was gone and he’d packed yet another trailer with “stuff” to take to his new wife appliance.
I tried not to react. To stress.
But, internally, as our home slowly emptied, I was panicking.
Eventually, I realised that most of what he took was not “the good stuff.” Much of what he chose to take was the crap we had as young, super poor kids.
There were some things I valued. Some lovely family furniture. It made sense that his family pieces went with him. Even though I loved them.
The only big (to me) “things” I was silently upset about were a side table my mother’s husband made for us and my chef’s knives.
Meh. That’s pretty marvellous, right? After 31 years of love, passion, and connection. To only be a bit concerned about those. I tried to be really rational about the “stuff.”
I had really fucked up emotions about our first “new” bed I researched and purchased, in the 80s. It was state of the art at the time. The most expensive “adult” purchase I had made to date. Recycled native timber, made from the pews from a dismantled church in Canterbury, and wrought iron.
So passé. But yeah, it seemed “classy” at the time.
Our two younger children were no doubt conceived in this bed. There are dozens of photos of our kids in this bed. Two homebirth babymoons, with co-sleeping, etc….
And he fucked both Leanne and Trinket in it, in my home.
So, much as I was deeply emotionally attached to the symbolism, I knew it was better that he took that taint out of my new home…
The post flood, silted up home photos showed cheap artwork. And that bed.
It’s something that there is no way of explaining to anyone. That emotional geography of home.
Both “our” home, and his.
This is what my friend wrote. And it helped me immensely.
I’m half glad it’s not in his space anymore, because it’s already lost to you and he had no right to have it after such a shitty discard so it being gone from his world… he finally has to deal with his world without the touches that Paula put on his world
What a lovely take on an uncomfortable situation.
I’ll never understand Trinket. Doing this to a loyal, loving partner. Why? How did she give herself permission to fuck a longterm partnered father and the love of someone else’s life?
I know his shit is something else. But her? So fucked up.
Working my butt off to scramble back out of this latest pothole.
I’m doing well, really.
BG drove us up to his Mum’s today. Both sisters were there and we had a lovely morning tea and lunch together
His middle sister bought me a gift!!!
Flying in from Sydney yesterday, she always buys BG some fragrance.
This time, she also bought some for me! I was so very, very touched.
And it is a fragrance I used to wear a lot. My youngest daughter’s name. How the hell did she get that so right???
I miss my mum. I miss my mother- in-law. Who cared for me so well after my lovely Mum died when I was 32.
But this new family is pretty damn wonderful too. I’m so lucky.
I admit it was a hard start, knowing that my eldest spent Mother’s Day weekend with her father. I wasn’t mad. He’s been through the wringer with losing so much in the February floods. And lives closer to her than I do.
But it was an ache, knowing that she was there. And I saw some pics of befores and afters.
It’s devastating. And seeing “my” things in the photos, knowing they have been destroyed, is heartbreaking.
I read the below this morning, and it hit me hard.
Rog did this when “we” were communicating in the early days.
He never once said I. Or me. It was always we.
And yeah, it stung. Ached like a motherfucker! But, I quickly realised this was his anxious attachment bullshit. He cannot be alone. He has never been alone. I didn’t realise it at 20, when I met him. But that’s how knowing someone five weeks, I moved in so fast with him. Love bombed. I mean, he’d been online dating Trinket three weeks when he decided she was The One.
Everything was about her. Them. He tried to get her to move to the region we were looking at real estate together in. When he realised he wasn’t going to get her out of her home region, he was moving to her. Like, immediately shifted his entire focus from our farm, our life, and started being a couple in her town.
It was bizarre to watch, I can tell you!
One minute, he was telling me I was his everything. He couldn’t live without me. And zap! Next, he’s entirely entangled in a stranger’s life.
We are going here. We like this. We are planning that. We’ll be there then.
Knifing me with every exchange.
Now, I’m fine with it. Because I see what he was doing. Whether it was deliberate or not, he was hurting me. But it quickly made me see who he is. I asked myself, who is this man I’ve loved and been incredibly loyal to my entire adult life? Oh, right, he’s a parasite.
He clings onto the first available host.
Seriously. This was the first in a long series of women he online dated, who swallowed the bait! There had been a string of them before her who had nibbled, bit spat him out, as I found out later.
He starts to wither and die without a partner to feed his ego.
I felt really sad for him then. Anyone who can’t be happily single is pretty vulnerable, eh?
I love my alone time. But I also see that it is a fairly gendered thing. Trained to serve, I love being responsible for no other human’s wellbeing.
For example, BG arrived late last night and hadn’t eaten. So, what do I do? Make him some dinner. And yeah. That irked me. Not so much that I did it. More that I felt the “need” to. Bad habits die hard.
Roger hasn’t ever been single his entire adult life. Partnered at 18, he left her to go on his OE. He met a girl the day he arrived in London. Abd waa with her the entire time he lived there.
When he arrived home, new girlfriends. When I met him, I was led to believe he had been single for a while. But I now know he was still fucking his ex – Leanne! – from time to time. He fucked her again just weeks after meeting me, when he was love bombing the shit outta me with daily contact, dates, hand picked flowers, etc. I backed off then, thinking we’d had a summer fling, and he was not available as anything more.
He pursued. Love bombing me into his arms. Ugh. I thought I was so emotionally intelligent, and had worked him out.
Five years later, when he insisted I needed to do an OE, to the point of paying half my airfare, and I left, he was serially fucking his way through our town. I was only gone six months. He shagged every available woman he could in that time. I mean, go him. That’s fine. But he had one “permanently” on call during that time, too. A fuck buddy/FWB. He knew she was a bit obsessed with him.
It wasn’t very kind.
This is who he is. An anxiously attached old dude, who is so good at this. He appears like he has his shit together but is incredibly needy. He earnestly told me, when I discovered his 18 month long affair with Leanne that he felt abandoned by me.
Because I got my first off farm job in over 17 years! That I had to get to pay the bills because he chose to sell our profitable farm for a new challenge, which made no financial sense!
Ugh. It’s infuriating watching the person you loved with every fibre of your being, love bombing someone else with the intensity he had you.
And unbelievably painful. To live with and love someone who immediately starts referring to a stranger as “we.”
Tearing at the Fabric 