In my case, yes, he must have been but I did not see it. This might sound cruel, but I think it's more sad than anything: much of the foolishness came out in my stepson, and I found it so difficult to understand until now. The stepson was constantly lying and doing the stupidest things and thinking he'd never get caught. I was sometimes completely astonished at his ability to look me in the face and lie, lie, lie.

Until I found out that his father was a master manipulator, a liar to the core, and a man who has brought stupid to a whole new level.

So that explains it. Like father, like son. All the same, I believe there's hope for the stepson. I don't think he has manipulative tendencies, or that there's the same level of evil in him as there is in his father. I just think he must have somehow known or sensed his father's lying tendencies and copied them. I wonder sometimes if it was subconsciously done, or if the stepson knew about the cheating long, long before I did.

I do remember one remark he made to me that set off a big red flag. When I told him his father was expelled from our church, and that it was for adultery, he asked if it were someone really young. ???? Where did he get that from, I wonder?

I got an interesting text from her one day. After we were back and forth on some things she appologized for what she had done (albeit an appology over a year after everything). But she continued to say she had pretended to be something she was not for many years, maybe our entire marriage. She said I probably would not like that person or who she is now. Umm - no kidding right? So you really are a cheating, lying, selfish,.....? Yeah, I don't like those types of people. But I still think about that comment. How would you act like someone else for almost 15 years. Doesn't make sense to me. If she was, she had me fooled. I think it's still more of she fell out of love with me, was tired from raising a kid with special needs, didn't want to be a full time parent anymore, had a mid-life crisis early (age 36) and didn't want to do the work required to stay married and work on your marriage.

Oops forgot greedy. She certainly had no problems taking what she felt was hers (and mine).

[This message edited by Dadtryingtocope at 9:08 AM, April 24th (Thursday)]

But mostly, it really comes down to them being ENTITLED, and SELFISH, very SELFISH

This is true in my case as well.

WH is smart enough to do good in his business running.

He just can't multi-task.

Family life lost out because he had to work so very hard at his work life to do a good job.

Then when he had to work so hard he began to feel entitled. He didn't feel he had to also work at a marriage too. Us supporting him wasn't enough.

Should have seen it coming when he began to buy things for himself because, in his own words, "I feel I deserve it" .

I guess he felt he deserved to cheat.

I think he saw me - someone intelligent with a lot of drive and ambition and going places in life - and wished he was more like that. He played the part well for a good 10 years. I don't care what anyone says - I made him into a better person. Until he got tired of it. I held him to higher standards than anyone ever had. He never had responsibility or accountability for anything before me. Well, that was all well and good until it became too much work.

OW is someone he can feel superior to. She was even more of a fuck up at life than he was. So good for him... his stupidity next to hers makes him feel like a genius.

I am not proud of how I realized my issues...but I am so very glad that I was not proud enough to seek and accept help.

He lied to me from the get go. I dated him back in High School, so my frame of reference was him at 17.

I know he came into this marriage a liar and a cheater but did not know it at the time. I did not know about narcissism and I definitely am co-dependent. My first husband was a recovering alcoholic....

The signs were there, he pursued me, wrote me these amazing love letters and all those feelings from High School were rekindled. The relationship moved so quickly and I thought at the time, that I was falling in love.

Now I understand that he needed supply and so he moved very quickly to secure that. Just the same way he repeated that with the current mistress.

He hid things from me, kept secrets about the money that have come out through the course of the divorce.

I try not to blame myself for getting involved with him, I was naive. I fell in love with him and trusted him. Now, I have no respect for him whatsoever and am divorcing his ass.

I think i was always that stupid, but always put on a mask or a cover to hide it. My stupid just became to big to hide, or to heavy to continue to hold....

Marriages that start this way, stepping over the bodies of loved ones as the giddy couple walks down the aisle, are not likely to last.

Undefinabl3, at the time, were you aware that you were putting on a mask? Did you know what you were doing?

So, I knew that it was a mask. I knew that the person that I was for the outside world, was not the person I really was inside.

But I never really understood my actions were wrong until the actual physical ONS. I KNEW that was wrong.

But, the flirting, the being very 'touchy feely' the very nice type of person. I thought all of this was a normal type of behavior. I was always a very intimate type person, so I never saw the lines of inappropriateness.

For the most part, I would put on a mask of understanding, and I would pretend that 'oh, it was just all in good fun" or "you know i dont mean anything by it" or "i was just trying to be nice"

It's taken alot for me to learn bounderies - and unfortunetly, that takes a lot of crossing them and then returning to the clear line that I have to watch carefully.

And without us there to give more of a voice to morality/conscience etc, the more exaggerated their poor choices...especially if they now surround themselves only with people who agree with them.

Agreed. XH has separated himself from any/everyone who disagreed w/A & OW. Which is why he has 2 friends left, 1 one which may not realized OW is OW.

I won't say XH is stupid, per se, but does make stupid decisions. Think XH glommed onto me as I was a good beard for his true self. Problem was, I & everyone around us, had yet to realize that we were only seeing the mask.

Now that the truth has been revealed, he's too far down the path to right himself. The bad decisions keep coming to justify all the bad ones that came before. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit in thinking he realizes how fucked up he is. Regardless, he's staying in the muck, so it's a moot point.

XH's selfishness, that appeared pretty early. I was too naive to ascribe the correct weight to it. In the same way that they rise to our standard, I think maybe we project alot of our more positive qualities on them.

eta: spelling

[This message edited by Vulcanized at 6:35 AM, April 25th (Friday)]