After infidelity, a lot of the advice is about no contact, or assessing the sincerity of a cheater's remorse, or decoding the cheaters' manipulations after discovery. But what about the ones who just go without a fight? Who just abandon? Who never come back?
There's no need to go no contact because they never contact you. Instead, you live with another kind of nightmare -- you weren't even worth fighting for. One day you're living in what you thought was a secure reality with this person, the next day they're gone without explanation. Without remorse.
Maybe you got a blank stare. A vague excuse. A lawyer's letter.
As a former chump who got operatic remorse and crocodile tears from her cheater, I want to be flippant and tell you guys you got the better end of the deal -- the cheater who just left. Your cheater didn't play you for more D-Days, didn't toy with your heart, or get a contact high off your grief. Nope, you got a tidy little sociopath who recognized that the jig was up and it was time to move on.
Which is worse, really? Hard to say and this isn't the pain Olympics. But I do have some thoughts on the abandoning cheaters who just go poof.
1. Take it as a perverse compliment. Seriously, all you people who were abandoned, reframe this. Your cheater knew they couldn't keep chumping you. They sensed your strength, and being the lazy, cheating jerks that they are, they needed an easier source of narcissistic supply. You weren't going to be that person. You were going to put up some resistance. They anticipated that and took the path of least resistance -- a cowardly exit.
I can see how you would take it as you didn't mean anything to them. You weren't worth so much as a goodbye, but that's not it. Disordered people don't connect deeply. You never meant to them what they meant to you.
They knew that they couldn't keep extracting value from you with the same ease. And that's because you're not as chumpy as your average chump. Manipulators suss you well -- they assessed your moxie, and they scampered away.
2. These people are really lazy. Cake (having the affair and the marriage) is so nice when it is undiscovered. All the control! All the perks! But once that nice situation is blown to pieces by the truth... oh no. They need to do some mental calculus. Work really, really hard at mindfucking you back into complacency, do the "sorry" kabuki theater of long emotional talks and therapy, give you some attention to win you back... or... they could just exit for their soul mate schmoopie, find another hypotenuse, and have the joys of undiscovered cake again.
Which is easier?
3. These people are really entitled. You don't deserve an explanation because it was never about you. Surely, you must know that the Most Important Thing Is Their Happiness? They're happier over here in this new place. You? You have a mess to clean up? You're heart broken? God, that's a buzz kill. They don't have to listen to you whinge. They'll just set your volume to "mute."
4. These people are really cold. Not that the operatic remorse, crocodile tear cheaters aren't cold too, but the abandoning cheaters are polar-vortex-Lake-Michigan-in-February-ice-ice-baby COLD. I know you see this walking out with no remorse as a big eff you, a huge rejection of the wonderfulness that is you, but that would be assuming that they care. They do not. It's not personal. These people are COLD. You mistook this ice cube for a human being. It happens. Maybe you bred with the ice cube. I'm sorry.
But they seem so warm and human for other people!
Yes, of course they do. See item #2. They need new undiscovered sources of cake. They will appear all nice and human-like until their cake situation is restored. Then what does the new person get? Laziness, entitlement, and ice ice cold baby.
What do you get?
A new, improved cheater-free life.
Tracy Schorn is the author of "Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life" (Running Press, April 2016) and blogger at Chump Lady.