Serial cheaters,,,your O please
Find a Conversation
Serial cheaters,,,your O please
| Sat, 01-22-2005 - 10:52am |
Honest opinions please (not just to my specific situation) about serial cheaters.
I was writing a response to Lizzie on the "Celebrate with me, for me" post and wrote this:
<<>>
What are your thoughts on this? Do you feel a serial cheater does have/ doesn't have the ability to care for any of his OW? Just curious. I really feel I was different. I do know my worth; although, I lost it for awhile.
SS

Pages
Thanks, Jackson!
It's crazy that I even care what he thinks of me. We based everything on lies and deceit anyway I look at it. It's that need for validation, which I can only get through healing and loving myself.
I just wish we could both be adults and discuss all these feelings openly. I wish I could have him tell me the truth...even if it hurts me. I'd much rather him tell me..."It was a game and you mean nothing to me!" rather than lie. But..I also recognize expecting him to do this would be like asking him to cut off his "food" supply. And...he won't be that stupid. But....if there are others....what's the problem "letting" me go.
There are still others waiting to be lied too. I'll never understand.
SS
SS
It's the same thing everyone tells herself, it's DIFFERENT WITH ME, NO ITS NOT.
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-rlending&msg=15088.1&ctx=512
fREE
becareful what you wish for. I'd rather my xMM lied to me and told me he was going back to his wife (i wouldve respected him more and felt great releif because once i found out he was married..i sooo didnt want to be an OW but I got very emotionally attached to him).
When he replaced me (had one in the wings ready) it was devastating to realize that i was not 'special'. Now i am realizing I am lucky. I think he is actually trying to muster up the D with his wife this month. I will not be the transition woman. He cares for me as a friend. I am not so sure I want the "serial cheater side" of him as a friend. Besides, usually once someone is getting out of their marriage...they rarely want to be tied down to ANYONE when they realize...omg I am freeee. (I think he is with her so he has a place to live. Men like him never have anything themselves they own...etc. he has no extra cash...lives paycheck to paycheck since leaving Iraq). So i dont see this lasting with the new OW (although he claims he is so happy). I think i have a crystal ball. We'll see.
I am feeling sorry for him. he is in a mess, financially (so is his wife...they were a mess financially but luckily they are living with her parents ...she will have support) and he is taking up with a younger woman with three kids. (I am very against kids knowing their single parents' b/f or g/f for at least a year). So she cannot be that great of a person (in my opinion..and he doesnt know enough about raising kids to realize that is wrong (in my opinion...sorry i am conservative that way). Kids need not watch their single parents date. It should not be a part of their lives. Dating should be totally hidden from them for at least a year. But then again..she is with a MM...no dating lol occassionaly work party...let him have his fun. I don't care anymore I need to worry about me). Dr. Laura anyone? LOL
I digress...
I am feeling better that Ive gotten to know him even more after he rejected me. I love the guy I thought I knew...but I dont think he exists fully. There is this really immature side of him (he is 31, I am 39) that he hasn't had a chance yet or taken a chance yet to mature. He has some hard lessons to learn. I come out looking pretty wise to him. I get the validation that I am more than a lay (i was probably a bad lay lolol). I will take his call if he calls again (he texted the other day...i rearended someone in my car when i was reading it LOL so didnt expect it). he merely wanted my work cell nextel direct number (his new OW has a nextel). Hmmm Sounds like he is setting himself up to make the break with his wife. Getting an new phone...and keeping me added to it. Hmm New OW (who is 10yrs younger than me)has Nextel. Hmm. He didnt call the direct connect number. (dont get it..asked but didnt call it...interesting). But he wanted it. Wonder what that means. Perhaps as a libra..he never burns his bridges. Sees me as support. I was great mental support for him. But I wont be the OW supporting his cell phone bill or having to deal with him during his D or whatever. I am shocked he is with her (she cant have more children). Children were important to him. He and his wife do not have any (His wife has fertility problems).
He is not learning to get what he really wants, only what suits him "right now". I feel sorry for him. There is a sweet scared guy inside him. Turns out I am the smarter stronger one..I just forgot that while he was mindf^&cking me. I think he realized ....just like you were thinking about how your MM sees you perhaps...there is something special in me. Transcends the girlfriend thingy. I am ok with that. It serves my SOUL. Can't make someone love you. Perhaps he doesnt know what love is. I do =). I let it go, no vengefulness. (lotta pain I am/was in that he refuses to want to know about). I do love the person inside him. He is a confused, immature, young man with a lot of problems yet to deal with. Trade off is that they are not going to be my problems.
Aint it great to be staring at 40 knowing you've at least learned things in life. Its the same feeling some might have about never wanting to be 22 again.
KWIM?,
Lizzie
At first when I read your post I was thinking how that was EXACTLY what I thought was the case between me and my XMM. We were acquaintances for a couple of years before *I* fell for him, and as acquaintences he would talk about his EMA partners. From what I gathered most of them were for sex only, and in his "defense" he was separated from his W for a few months. But when he did go back home he kept seeing this one woman on the side. And his attitude toward her disgusted me a little bit. He'd tell me a lot of details about going to her place, how she'd respond, what they did together, and later on he'd talk about their arguments, and how the OW was "too demanding" and he needed to distance himself from the situation. When he was separated he had taken this woman around his kids for his visits, and he even discussed having a baby with her.
Yeah, how stupid of me, huh? But at that time I was married too and not the least bit interested in MM so what he said didn't matter. But I felt I got a glimpse of his character and thought it was disgraceful.
But in other ways I really enjoyed his company. He was easy to talk with and when he wasn't yapping about the W and OW he was a good conversationalist. He'd tell me other things that revealed a more humane side of his character, and after another couple of years I started seeing him through a different light (probaby rose colored glasses in retrospect).
After a while I felt what you described in your post. What we had was *different*. Plus by the time I had started feeling that, he was talking about how he was no longer doing the EMA thing because "it wasn't what he wanted anymore". He was still lonely and "miserable" in his marriage, but he had started going to individual counseling and spending more time alone like taking walks in the woods, spending nights in hotel rooms by himself, getting more involved with his kids.
It took me another few years but eventually I fell for his crap. I let my guard down and became his conquest. Thank goodness I let that part last for only a month or so and then I told him to take a hike. But he let me go with no problem and I have no doubt that he has just moved on to the next broad to string along. Some people just are not capable of truly "loving". They could be involved with the Greek godess Venus and still not be a faithful, respectful, honest companion. It's not about how good the other person is; it's about how messed up in the head (and heart) that the cheater is. The quicker we understand that, the easier it is to realize that the guy was just a wolf in sheeps clothing. Be thankful you didn't end up with him.
Lizzie-
That is so weird. I feel sorry for him too. When this started, he told me he had one fling with a woman when he was traveling. He said she became a stalker. (Yeah right...LOL) Looking back, I think I always knew something just wasn't right. So when he gave me his password to check on something for work, I read all these emails. Some dated back to 2001. He was caught. I was livid. When I spoke to him (crying and acting completely crazy...like he was my H), I told him how sorry I felt for him that he has to be constantly "filled" up by so many women, so much of the time...that he doesn't even know who he is as a person. I cried for him that day and still think...what a sad existence!!! I put myself on this pedestal b/c after all this was my first A. Now, I feel no better or worse than he is b/c I was trying to let him fill a void in me as well. And if I didn't learn from this, I could end up just like him with a string of A. My H has a career where he travels all the time, and I'm alone to take care of everything on my own. That fear of becoming "HIM" terrifies me so I am trying to work on me so that doesn't happen.
Before this last time I ended it, I would write a list of reasons why it needed to end to myself. They always consisted of b/c you...you aren't anything like you presented yourself to be...you care for no one but yourself...etc...etc. Now on the top of my list is my DH and I, my children's name, then all those reasons about HIM.
Small steps first, then big steps. Thanks for sharing your story.
you write: "What are your thoughts on this? Do you feel a serial cheater does have/ doesn't have the ability to care for any of his OW? "
I think that serial cheaters are attention whores. They are in it for the attention, and nothing else. Once disappointment sets in, they are off onto a new quest with someone who has no clue as to what they're really about.
I think their ability to care about the OW is commensurate to their need for adoration and attention, without it being polluted by, as I said, disapppointment. When she begins making demands, he no longer wants the burden of meeting them.
Hiya Sunshine tx,
I have no personal experience of being a serial cheater (once was sufficient to learn that particular life lesson), however, I was able to observe my father (a serial cheater) in action for many years. I won't begin to speak for him, since no one but my father could do that for himself, all I can offer are my observations from the age of 11yrs. Since I was most often his alibi, I was probably party to most of his numerous affairs.
My father's usual pattern seemed to be that of becoming smitten with an OW, pursuing her, discovering what made her tick then using that to keep her dependent upon him until he grew bored or his interest was captured by another OW. It was not unusual for him to be ending with two OW whilst actively pursuing a third. To my knowledge, none of the OW were aware of one another but only father really knows.
If pressed, I'd have to say that he did have a certain affection especially for some of them. I could name about four who he deemed sufficiently important to bother introducing them to me. Each of the four he actually believed would be long-term OW, though none lasted more than 6 or 9mos.
Hazarding a guess, I'd say once he knew what made them tick, knew their vulnerabilities, knew how far he could push them or what they would accept and once they no longer presented a real challenge anymore, well, it was on to the next. He seemed the most disappointed in the ones in whom he'd had the most hope, as if they failed some test and he was irritated with himself for believing they might pass where others had failed.
They came in all shapes & sizes, hair colours & temperments & occupations. Father once said he simply "loved" women, though I'd have to question his definition of love since he also said the only woman he ever truly loved was my mother.
Mother threw him out when I was 17 and my brother 12 and wound up marrying my father's best friend to whom she's been happily married for over 20yrs now. Last I heard, Father was on his third wife (thrown out by his second wife also for cheating) whom he's described as "disposable," and none of his four children (two biological and two adopted in his second marriage) wish to maintain any form of contact with him. For all we know, he could be working on wife number 4 or 5.
One thing is certain and that's none of the women in his life had the capacity to *make* him happy. Nor has he (at last contact 18mos ago) worked out that the expectation of others to *make* him happy will inevitably set him up for failure.
Strength & peace,
Posie
More food for thought in the following UK newspaper article entitled "Some of my best friends are women (Inside the mind of the man who wants you)"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1244898,00.html
Let me know if there are any British phrases or terms which need clarification and I'll do my best to translate ;)
Strength & peace,
Posie
<<>>
Wow, this sounds just like my XMM and the problem that ended up causing me to break up with him. Seeing his new interest in another woman, while he was telling ME how I much I mean to him, was more than I could handle. When I told him how I felt about what I was seeing, he still failed to curtail this 'attention' they were showing each other. In my book, if you love a woman like you say you do, and you know she's being hurt by something you're doing, you stop doing it. So that translated to me, that her attention meant more to him than me. BIG eye opener.
Pages