The Script: what would you add!

[JFDIYOLO]

A trending thread follows a very familiar pattern here, of a seemingly happy marriage to a good man suddenly imploding with a shock announcement / discovery.

The middle aged man's script, as her doctor put it.

A poster suggested printing a tick list to bring to discussions with the errant / cheating / lying husband, to take control of the situation and demonstrate clearly that you know what he's up to, that he's following a time worn script.

So here's my take - what would you add?

🟩I'm not happy, haven't been for a long time

🟩You've let yourself go

🟩You're not the girl I married

🟩You went off sex after having my baby / children

🟩Your body changed after having my baby / children

🟩You've let the house go, it's a tip

🟩We have nothing in common

🟩There's nobody else

🟩All you ever think about is the kids, they take all your time and attention

🟩You expect me to share housework and childcare when I want to cycle / play golf / go to football (add/delete as appropriate)

🟩No, I said there's nobody else

🟩You're making it up / imagining things / crazy

🟩You know what you're like

🟩We don't need a solicitor, we can do it ourselves

🟩Well, you stayed at home doing nothing (creating and nurturing x human beings and our home doesn't count) and I paid the mortgage so you're not entitled to the house, or anything really

🟩We only met recently. After you and I split up. Honest.

🟩You're not getting your hands on the house / my income / my savings / my pension.

🟩I'm having 50/50 with the kids, which I absolutely understand will entail me learning how to look after them and will step up and do it all, yes, definitely.

🟩She's crazy, look what I had to put up with.

🟩You know that 50/50 I was suddenly so insistent on, well I can't have the kids / do the school run / take them to their appointment after all because (insert and delete as appropriate).

🟩Is it too late for us, please can I come back? Her kids are doing my head in.

🟩 Why not? Why would you break up our family?

Made the Microsoft Teams window absolutely tiny so if he needed to access it whilst sat next to me on his laptop, I couldn't see the chat.

Turned off the image preview of Teams chat notification on his laptop, and message preview on his phone.

Was very stressed with work but couldn't talk to me about it because he was worried about burdening me. So he needed to talk to her instead. Obviously.

Just wanted to help her because she was a struggling single mum and he really likes helping people.

'Why did I cheat? You had gone all quiet and moody and weren't any fun'
One month after a close family bereavement. Apparently I should have been over it by then. Bastard.

Likes helping people..IE ow with his penis.
It's pathetic the crap that comes out.

For me it was the worst thing about the entire situation. The man caused me to have a complete breakdown and end up hospitalized. He didn't care about that either, because that too was my own fault. Must learn to cope better y'know.

It sounds like you may still be deep in tbe thick of things at the moment. The long and the short of it, is that right now you should not believe a word that is coming out of their mouth. They make up such a web of lies and yes in between all the deceit may be the odd truth, but the lies usually outweigh these. It's so they can have a clearer conscience. They need to believe this shit they are spouting.

Try to detach from it. I know that is easier said than done when everything said to you is what you have done negatively. But you know the truth. Focus on that.

This thread has been quite therapeutic I agree. And it is quite astounding that it's a repeat of the same thing over and over.

I didn't even think about the cleaning thing as part of it, but this was very much the case with me too. The prick would run his hand over the tops of doors and show me the dust. If there was a mark on a light switch he would ask me what I do all day. Er worked full time and practically singley raising two children (one with complex needs). When I said why didn't he just get a cloth and wipe it instead of using his energy moaning about it, it would start all over. I pay for everything here (he absolutely didn't), how would you like to come home to a mess (a finger mark on a light switch was hardly living in squalor). No one cares about what he thinks (correct mate, that finger print there I don't care about when mentally I'm just trying to hold on). He would inspect my car to see how dirty it was. If there was a packet or empty juice box in the back from the dc, he would comment about how ungrateful they were.. Even pointing out a mark on the (leather so can be wiped) seat.
The complaints about meals I'd made. Because apparently we only ever eat the same thing over and over.

It was incessant. It's no wonder I ended up in hospital.

Gaslighting is mental abuse. It makes you feel worthless and you doubt every single thing about yourself. I wish I was able to see this then.

Sorry. I read back and you use past tense.

But as you say stbx I dare say you may still have to have some dealings with him.

Somewhere needs to go the bit where they start losing weight, using moisturiser, buying sexy underwear (but expecting you to wash them).

Also using an entirely new vocabulary that they have picked up from the OW.

Also suddenly being interested in TV programs, films or hobbies that they naturally would never gravitate towards but they are of interest to the OW so they get interested so they have something in common. These may be things that they have mocked in the past.

I was told:

I was just looking for friends- I was lonely (r.e. gay meet up site)

You were emotionally unavailable and wouldn't talk about your day (frontline worker during covid working full time pregnant with hypermeresis whilst exh was on furlough)

I was unhappy and you knew that (literally spent all our time laughing and joking)

Very cathartic to read so many familiar lines. Especially the new interests (opera anyone?). I don't think anyone has yet recorded 'you didn't arrange to see my friends enough'. I didn't like his friends but would have happily spent time with them if he could have been arsed to make plans with them. Fucker. They're all fuckers.

Hey, divorce dragging ob.

If it hadn't been for my friends, I would have completely crumbled with the gaslighting and blaming (he blamed me for.being jealous of pregnant women after 3.5 years of unsuccessfully trying to conceive)

I think it's the hardest part for me- the knowledge that someone who I really loved would be so incredibly cruel

Has anyone of you been able to "forgive"?

Oh and now the constant "you are bitter"

All fuckers!!! Indeed

@RedHotChilliPreppers

• I’ve got to do what is best for me

Funnily enough this was said to me recently but from a man after only a couple of dates do no big deal but I now realise it is probably a line he has learned to trot out a lot.

All the others -yep - hit bingo on all of those from my exh

It’s not you , it’s me ,
im depressed and you were not there for me

Yes like a complete turnaround of personality. I don't know what that is all about either, but I think it's for justifying things in their head. Like everyone else is in the wrong, she made me do it due to XYZ and so it goes on.

Can I forgive? No I don't think so 100% but as the saying goes, time is a healer. I don't even speak to my ex and we are divorced 10 years now. It's because I don't want to, he adds nothing to my life (my children are adults now so they choose if they want to see him or not, but it's mostly not ). I don't even think about him any more. It's only due to this thread that I'm offloading a bit here.

Am I bitter? I don't think so, but he sure as shit does. His negativy will never change. I am just a lot more guarded and have a strong bullshit meter. Some claim that to be bitterness. I look at it as I survived something that at one point I thought I may not. Something like that definitely changes you.

You have great friends. Hang on to them. 😃

This 100%

But of course... what they did (i.e. shagged away from home) meant nothing to them. Right! Why do it then????!!!!

Yup, you truly know who your friends are when shit hits the fan in a big way

Luckily, my friends are keepers and for life.

I will build my life around my friend who've been with me through thick and thin and men will be sidelined

Thankyou everyone for more nail-head-hitting suggestions.

I'll compile an extended version with them in due course.

So what it is, is ...

🟩The Tick List you can check off when they start churning them out, to help you keep on top of conversations

🔮A forewarning of what may be to come, to help you predict next moves or recognise what's in front of you

🫂An exercise that may somehow help you feel better to realise you're not alone.

Maybe we need a companion list with the answers, responses, questions you could ask in return?

The reason why cheating partners create an alternate universe in which history is re written and the affair victim (ie the betrayed spouse) is blamed for everything is a psychological concept called "cognitive dissonance"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Oh my God, yes!

When they forget and put something into a text message that they would NEVER usually use (like an unexpected 'lol' from someone who claims to hate it).

As for developing new interests - I've had two separate cheating exes suddenly REALLY into films I'd been trying for years to get them to watch with me.
Especially galling to realise they've been parroting your thoughts and opinions about a subject you know well, which they've never shown any interest in, in order to impress the OW

Suddenly using emojis like a teenager but in middle age...🤮

Losing weight, lots more exercise.

Growing a beard.

I also got;

• I like it when you go down the gym and get fit and toned for me.

This said when I felt like shit and went for a workout. Err, actually no, I was going to recuperate my MH after you’d just trashed it. I wasn’t trying to lose weight and tone up for YOU.

Off topic slightly I know but as someone said below

"Gaslighting is mental abuse. It makes you feel worthless and you doubt every single thing about yourself. I wish I was able to see this then."

This is possibly the worst and most cruel thing that they can do to anyone. You end up doubting yourself. It strikes to the very core of your being. It is abuse of someone else's mental health to absolve themselves of their actions. It is only afterwards that you see it. I lived this for several years and it nearly destroyed me.

Me too.
I didn't realise how much gaslighting happened to me until years later.

And as you say, it has a lasting effect.

Yes the gaslighting and blame shifting is ehat nearly broke me.

The snagging another woman is bad enough but the things they do to justify their behaviour and not have to take any responsibility for their behaviour is truly the worst and absolutely abusive.

Having an affair is a cowardly act in any way, but the behaviour that follows is so cowardly too.

My stbxh has an OW who helps with childcare, cooking, cleaning the lot. He's swimming on money, he's gotten rid off me and everything seems to be going so well for him (which sometimes kills me as it is so utterly unfair).

But I'd never ever want to be in his position, I can leave my marriage with my head held high, he however has turned into an utterly despicable person who was.willing to destroy his spouses MH in order to.keep his sane.

It's incredibly sad