lol...(shaking head here) I remember my EX saying something about my inability to sort socks when his affair came out. 'So that is your excuse? That's your reason to undo our lives and the lives of our kids? Because I bitch every time I have to sort socks for a family of five?' He shrugged his shoulders as if that should make sense.

I told him to blow it out his ass.

I hear you...L~

Our house has always been a happy mess, before, during, and since my affair. That had nothing to do with my choice.

My Mom recently bought me a little plaque for the kitchen that says "Good mothers have dirty floors, filthy ovens and happy children". She's always believed it and so do I.

My husband free up in one of those spotless homes, never sullied by the messiness of icky relationships. Who would want relationships getting in the way of picture perfect?

I like that -

Good mothers have dirty floors, filthy ovens and happy children.

*grew*, not free. :(

Onyx, really, that "house not clean enough" is nonsense. That's just the cheater using anything to vilify and justify. It's ridiculous.
My house is not spotless, and one of the reasons for that is my husband.

my second husband divorced me ....he said I wasn't keeping up my end of the marriage...what I found out later was, that I was NOT his mother, that old bat didn't sleep, see stayed awake all night cleaning and doing laundry and stuff, coffee clutched all day....her husband worked third shift and her kids(including of course my ex) were perfect, they never did anything wrong, were potty trained by 6 months, went to bed by 7 pm(including during the summer months)and were seen and never heard.....she did not play with them, she did not do things with them, they were more like trophies....and now he is married to his 7th grade sweetheart, and she does NOTHING, he does all of the housework, laundry, shopping, banking, yard work...etc and she won't even ride his precious Harley he bought with his stash that kept his kids from having a decent life after he left us....I played with my kids, took them to the zoo and to parks and we did stuff in the yard, went to the library...and I still kept m house clean, did the laundry like a crazy person, did the yard work, cooked, did the banking, made the kids birthday cakes, help to care for other peoples children so they could work, played softball three times a week, took care of the elderly neighbors....but I wasn't good enough as a wife, oh yeah, I kept my figure after the 3 kids...the last one was post his leaving the first time and coming back and was a very difficult pregnancy, I was on bed rest for most of it and had a hysterectomy as a result of the complications, just months before he filed for divorce again and I trusted deeply, loved with a passion, enjoyed sex....so here I am, in my third marriage, we are trying to restore a 100 year old house, the grandkids live with us, as well as my adult daughter and my 17 year old son...my house is as clean as it can be, it is always dusty, no matter what I do, but the laundry is done, the yard, the dishes....and I was working a lot of hours at a crappy job(which I felt I had to keep because I knew something was wrong and he was not being honest about things, just didn't know what)

It is astonishing what excuses the cheaters will come up with to justify their immoral behavior. Here are a few little gems from my ex:

1) We don't communicate. He said this even though we were together every evening and weekend and he would chatter incessantly about stupid stuff. Yep, no communication.

2) We have no intimacy. Kind of hard to do when he pushed me away when I initiated intimacy. Guess he was too tired from the "multiple affairs with multiple women" he decided to tell me about in a voicemail a year and a half after we divorced.

2) He said I read too much. As my car pool partner said, "What's he going to do, subpeona the local newspaper (a document that takes less than 5 minutes to read)?"

Don't ever believe the bullshit they spew. It's total nonsense.

Wow, I can't believe how many CS's are using that as an excuse. My X said I never changed, so he cheated. One of the things I never changed was I couldn't keep the house clean and he'd been with me for 15 years and decided it was a good excuse to cheat.
Pardon, I worked as much and contribute as much as he did financially, but he wanted someone who could cook, clean and agree with whatever he said. Sure, if he let me stay home full-time, I actually wouldn't mind doing that.

I did too much of the cleaning. She did not feel I needed her.

Once the boundary is crossed there is no limit to the justification that occurs.

Well, thank you all - this validates the nonsensical situation of this stupid situation -

Even myself a year later (I know thats not that long but still) - thoughts come back and I need to hear things (as well as I think others - my quesitons are not solely for my benefit) - to be validated and thank you all for it.

I just know that I have heard this same excuse - mainly from men who were cheated on but I know it goes both ways - that they didn't keep the house "clean" all the time.

I had a shrink tell me once, that when people complain about or are always trying to fix the "outside"(like a clean house, car, better looking job, better appearances) they have things on the inside that really need to be fixed but they don't know how to fix them, so they make the outside "pretty" so they appear acceptable

Well, then, judging by our outsides, my little family must be really secure! :)

shegvehim - that makes complete sense actually - thanks for bringing that up.

My STBX would always be so good at matching the boys cloths etc - she complained a couple of times that I didnt match the boys cloths all that well and nor did my parents. She's worried about matching cloths and not about the type of preditor she is bringing around my boys...Nice...

She also self tanned her face (who does that crap) - when this A went down - and pretty much turned to orange.... WTF....

Yes - its not whats on the outside - its whats on the inside.

My ex, father of our oldest, was Horrified by the way I let her leave the house. I got her a big button that said, proudly, 'I dressed myself today!!!', and I was l good. He, on the other hand, insisted that it's 'just not done', snarling and grumping as was his way. And he cheated on me, after I gave birth and no longer had the energy or the money (thanks to him) to look model perfect anymore.

Then again, I cheated and I barely give a shit about appearances.

There's just no one common factor. No easily identifiable indicators of who will and who won't. No genetic markers :(

Dang, I had plenty of time to clean my house and raise a child while my X stayed away from home, cheating.

Hmmm....maybe I should've let my house get real dirty?