Cheaters wonder how they get busted...
...with little, if any, actual evidence. There are so many ways that a person can tip their own hand that it's pretty tough to fool anyone who knows them at all. One of the many ways that I knew Rick was cheating was the fact that he didn't call me from work as often as he usually did.
When I would ask him why he wasn't calling like he did, he would say something lame like, "How many times a day do you want me to call you? I'm at WORK!!!" I didn't care how many times he called me from work and I wouldn't have minded if he never called from work.
But...when he changed his normal pattern of calling me every two hours, I knew something was up. That's one of the things that cheaters don't consider when they're cheating, the normal pattern of the relationship that they no longer follow. If Rick had never called me from his job in the first place, I wouldn't have minded. I understand that, as a nurse, I can't just sit on the phone when I'm supposed to be working. But when his normal pattern changed, I had to assume that something about our relationship had changed as well.
If it isn't bad enough that I was left to wonder what was going on, I couldn't ask any questions about the subject without being called unreasonable for expecting phone calls from work. When you confront a cheater with a concern like that, they have this annoying habit of turning it all back on you and making you feel like an idiot for even broaching the subject.
Rick would say, "I'm working, I can't just call you whenever I want to. Do you want to talk to my boss? Do you want me to prove that I'm at work? You tell me, I'll sit on the phone with you now until they fire me, then will you be happy?"
He would totally dance around my concern, the fact that his normal pattern had changed abruptly with no reason that I could see. There would be absolutely no way that I could get him to address the real issue because he wanted to turn it all back on me, calling me ridiculous for expecting him to call from work.
Men (I know, women too, but being heterosexual, I bitch about men) have such a predictable pattern when they're cheating that it's amazing that they don't see it and try to hide it before the women notices it. As predictable as it is that a cheating man will change the way he treats his wife, it's just as predictable that he will get angry and defensive when she brings it up. They will find some way to make the woman feel like an idiot for mentioning that she is upset over something. This is an example of such a conversation:
She: "I've noticed that you don't call me as much as you used to."
He: "I'm at work!"
She: "I know you are, but you used to call me a lot more often."
He: "I can prove I'm at work, do you want to talk to my boss? How about the guy next to me, would you like to talk to him?"
She: "No, I know you're at work, I was just wondering why you don't call like you used to call."
He: "I work ten hours a day to pay the bills and all I get is BULLSHIT! This is BULLSHIT! I'm paying the bills and you are harassing me!"
She: "I don't mean to harass you, I just worry when you act differently then you usually do."
He: "OK then, I'll just sit here on the phone with you to make you happy and then we won't have a house and we'll be living on the street. THEN will you be happy?"
She: "Of course not, I just worry, that's all."
He: "Well, you're doing it to yourself, I'm just working my ass off in order to pay the bills and you're telling me that I should call you 50 times a day and chat for hours!"
She: "That's not what I said at all."
He: "Well, that's how it sounded!"
She: "Never mind, I'm sorry."
That's about the way our conversations would go when Rick was doing Gail Glenn. It's the way he spoke whenever he was cheating. When he wasn't cheating on me, he acted like a loving man who cared for me. That was quite a huge jump in behavior but as I said, as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.
I guess that cheaters actually believe that they are being reasonable when they act like this, they have to convince themselves that they're doing nothing wrong and that the cheatee is being totally UN-reasonable. But the fact that they SAY these things doesn't make it true and it doesn't make the cheatee believe them one bit. A cheatee MAY buy this crap a couple of times, but after a while, they get to know the patterns of the relationship and even though they may not know exactly WHAT is wrong, they absolutely know that SOMETHING is wrong when those patterns change.
What to do about this is up to each individual person. No one solution fits all problems so every woman (or man) has to decide for themselves how they need to handle their own relationship problems. Personally, I wish that I had called Cheaters back when I had the chance to do so but I never really KNEW in my head what I knew in my heart, that Rick was cheating on me. It took me months to admit it to myself and a bit more time to actually figure out exactly how blatant the cheating was.
(To this day, I occasionally find more evidence of his affairs. Not only that, but I also find myself having these little epiphany's where I figure out what happened when I was curious about something 3 years ago. Just a couple of weeks ago I found that Rick had been communicating with his bimbo du jour on AIM. I tried to install it to communicate with a friend in Arizona and found that it had already been installed on this computer with the user name KelsoRick in the box. He hated IM'ing and never used the computer for anything other than "paying the bills" when he was here. At least that's what he told me.)
My purpose in writing this isn't really to offer a solution. I write this and things like it in order to help people know that they aren't "crazy" and that they aren't "doing it to them self". They really do have legitimate reasons for the way that they feel. So, no matter how much someone else tries to make them feel like dirt when they mention things that bother them, they really, really aren't nuts.
Now, I have to do a couple of things for the probation officer, I'll be back later.
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
...with little, if any, actual evidence. There are so many ways that a person can tip their own hand that it's pretty tough to fool anyone who knows them at all. One of the many ways that I knew Rick was cheating was the fact that he didn't call me from work as often as he usually did.
When I would ask him why he wasn't calling like he did, he would say something lame like, "How many times a day do you want me to call you? I'm at WORK!!!" I didn't care how many times he called me from work and I wouldn't have minded if he never called from work.
But...when he changed his normal pattern of calling me every two hours, I knew something was up. That's one of the things that cheaters don't consider when they're cheating, the normal pattern of the relationship that they no longer follow. If Rick had never called me from his job in the first place, I wouldn't have minded. I understand that, as a nurse, I can't just sit on the phone when I'm supposed to be working. But when his normal pattern changed, I had to assume that something about our relationship had changed as well.
If it isn't bad enough that I was left to wonder what was going on, I couldn't ask any questions about the subject without being called unreasonable for expecting phone calls from work. When you confront a cheater with a concern like that, they have this annoying habit of turning it all back on you and making you feel like an idiot for even broaching the subject.
Rick would say, "I'm working, I can't just call you whenever I want to. Do you want to talk to my boss? Do you want me to prove that I'm at work? You tell me, I'll sit on the phone with you now until they fire me, then will you be happy?"
He would totally dance around my concern, the fact that his normal pattern had changed abruptly with no reason that I could see. There would be absolutely no way that I could get him to address the real issue because he wanted to turn it all back on me, calling me ridiculous for expecting him to call from work.
Men (I know, women too, but being heterosexual, I bitch about men) have such a predictable pattern when they're cheating that it's amazing that they don't see it and try to hide it before the women notices it. As predictable as it is that a cheating man will change the way he treats his wife, it's just as predictable that he will get angry and defensive when she brings it up. They will find some way to make the woman feel like an idiot for mentioning that she is upset over something. This is an example of such a conversation:
She: "I've noticed that you don't call me as much as you used to."
He: "I'm at work!"
She: "I know you are, but you used to call me a lot more often."
He: "I can prove I'm at work, do you want to talk to my boss? How about the guy next to me, would you like to talk to him?"
She: "No, I know you're at work, I was just wondering why you don't call like you used to call."
He: "I work ten hours a day to pay the bills and all I get is BULLSHIT! This is BULLSHIT! I'm paying the bills and you are harassing me!"
She: "I don't mean to harass you, I just worry when you act differently then you usually do."
He: "OK then, I'll just sit here on the phone with you to make you happy and then we won't have a house and we'll be living on the street. THEN will you be happy?"
She: "Of course not, I just worry, that's all."
He: "Well, you're doing it to yourself, I'm just working my ass off in order to pay the bills and you're telling me that I should call you 50 times a day and chat for hours!"
She: "That's not what I said at all."
He: "Well, that's how it sounded!"
She: "Never mind, I'm sorry."
That's about the way our conversations would go when Rick was doing Gail Glenn. It's the way he spoke whenever he was cheating. When he wasn't cheating on me, he acted like a loving man who cared for me. That was quite a huge jump in behavior but as I said, as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.
I guess that cheaters actually believe that they are being reasonable when they act like this, they have to convince themselves that they're doing nothing wrong and that the cheatee is being totally UN-reasonable. But the fact that they SAY these things doesn't make it true and it doesn't make the cheatee believe them one bit. A cheatee MAY buy this crap a couple of times, but after a while, they get to know the patterns of the relationship and even though they may not know exactly WHAT is wrong, they absolutely know that SOMETHING is wrong when those patterns change.
What to do about this is up to each individual person. No one solution fits all problems so every woman (or man) has to decide for themselves how they need to handle their own relationship problems. Personally, I wish that I had called Cheaters back when I had the chance to do so but I never really KNEW in my head what I knew in my heart, that Rick was cheating on me. It took me months to admit it to myself and a bit more time to actually figure out exactly how blatant the cheating was.
(To this day, I occasionally find more evidence of his affairs. Not only that, but I also find myself having these little epiphany's where I figure out what happened when I was curious about something 3 years ago. Just a couple of weeks ago I found that Rick had been communicating with his bimbo du jour on AIM. I tried to install it to communicate with a friend in Arizona and found that it had already been installed on this computer with the user name KelsoRick in the box. He hated IM'ing and never used the computer for anything other than "paying the bills" when he was here. At least that's what he told me.)
My purpose in writing this isn't really to offer a solution. I write this and things like it in order to help people know that they aren't "crazy" and that they aren't "doing it to them self". They really do have legitimate reasons for the way that they feel. So, no matter how much someone else tries to make them feel like dirt when they mention things that bother them, they really, really aren't nuts.
Now, I have to do a couple of things for the probation officer, I'll be back later.
Meg
email me at megbkelso@gmail.com
posted by Meg Kelso | 10:26 AM
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