Ex-Wife of DL Cheating Husband: “Love and Respect Yourself!”

4 Steps to Moving Past Husband or Boyfriend’s Cheating

Brenda Stone Brower is the ex-wife of J.L. King, an author who notoriously exposed the secret homosexual and bisexual lifestyles of men who publicly portrayed themselves as monogamous, faithful husbands and boyfriends to their devoted wives and families.

Married for eight years, Brower admits she overlooked several curious instances where her husband’s actions raised red flags, which included disappearing at odd hours and hanging out with male friends who were hostile towards her. She questioned her husband on several occasions, only to be met with denials and accusations.

It wasn’t until “one Saturday night in 2002, I found myself in front of the television watching my ex-husband tell the world that he was a man living on the ‘down low.’…He was being featured on a CNN special on men on the down low… [To see and hear him] speaking so candidly about his ‘lifestyle’ and his ‘desires’ hurt. Here he was telling the world something he could never say to my face,” states Brower.

Brower has since remarried and celebrates over twenty years of marriage with her current husband. She admits it was a long and painful road to recovering from the damage her first husband has bestowed upon her. The following are her personal recommendations for women to consider when dealing with a cheater, even if they aren’t on the down low:

1. Love and respect yourself. People with something to hide tend to avoid self-assured and confident individuals. By loving yourself and placing yourself first, you can avoid dealing with a cheater or DL man for prolonged periods of time because you’ll love yourself enough to make the tough decisions needed for a healthy relationship – even if it means leaving him.
2. Trust your intuition. When you are in tune with yourself, you know when something is wrong. Even if the concrete proof isn’t evident, trust that internal voice that warns you something’s not okay – it will never fail you.
3. Once you discover the truth, do something about it. It takes strength and courage to face the truth. Even the strongest or most beautiful woman can get caught up with a cheater. How you handle it is what’s most important. Don’t spend time licking your wounds; take action to resolve the situation and move forward.
4. Speak to someone. The healing process differs for everyone, but most women discover that talking about what’s occurred is an opportunity to open themselves up to healing and finding closure. Even if you don’t feel comfortable talking to friends, you can always seek assistance from a trusted licensed life coach, counselor, or even a spiritual leader.

Read more of Brenda’s compelling tale in her book, On the Up and Up,  available on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Why Do You Attract Cheating Men?

How Cheating Men Pick Their Women

When it comes to dealing with infidelity and the humiliation that comes with it, Brenda Stone Browder’s an expert. When her cheating husband, J.L. King, revealed the shocking truth of his sexual affairs on national television after years of denial, it took a lot of strength, patience and guidance for Browder to overcome the gut-wrenching pain of King’s unfaithfulness. (King, who has since divorced Browder, admitted that he had engaged in a series of homosexual affairs with other men while married to Browder while on a CNN special concerning down low men.)

After continuous soul searching, Browder eventually triumphed from the broken marriage, and discovered patterns that she and other women who were victims of infidelity shared. Her findings revealed that most cheating men usually gravitated towards women who regularly compromised their needs to put others first.

“You cannot lift someone else up unless you are first on steady ground,” asserts Browder, who has since published On the Up and Up. “The need to nurture and be there for you mate is natural- but not if it means you diminish yourself in the process.”

Browder generalizes that there are three types of women who are targeted by cheating men and explains why they’re so vulnerable to deception.

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed – The Naïve Woman

This woman is the ideal woman for a cheater. She has no life experience, and has more than likely had limited interactions with men and relationships. The dating game is new to her, so she tends to trust easily. When she falls in love, she falls deeply and is romantic and devoted to her husband.

She’s so desirable to cheaters because she’s easy to deceive; a misleading, cheating husband or cheating boyfriend wants a woman that’s easily controlled and impressed.  Inexperienced women can be easily trusting of partners, and tend not to question things their men do; even if she does raise concerns, it’s fairly easy for a cheater to twist the truth or manipulate her perception of things to keep her at bay.

Insecure and Self-Loathing – The Woman Who Has Low Self-Esteem

Women who don’t love themselves are extremely alluring to cheaters. A woman who doesn’t value herself is apt to make excuses for an unfaithful man’s behavior, even if he’s blatantly cheating on her. She will almost never accept that she can do better for herself in terms of finding a good man.

Overweight women are often seen in this type of situation. Oftentimes, she’ll enter a relationship overweight and just feel happy to have a man, so much so that she’ll release him of any responsibility to treat her and the relationship in a respectful manner. When he cheats or belittles her, she’ll blame her weight and appearance as an excuse to justify why he’s so cruel to her, and allow it to perpetuate her continuous cycle of self-loathing.

Other women may not be overweight, but for any number of reasons will feel as if they’ll never be able to find another man, and desperately cling to their no-good man by any means. Once a woman learns to value herself in entirety, she’ll realize that any “piece” of a man will never be enough to satisfy her as much as a fully devoted man is, giving her the strength to remove herself from a bad relationship.

She’s Got Something to Hide as Well – Making Her an Equal Accomplice

Like attracts like; women with something to hide may consciously enter into a relationship with a man she realizes is incapable or unwilling to be completely upfront with her. Whether she needs a man to provide for her, nurses an alcohol or drug addiction, or simply wants a tangible exchange out of the arrangement, such women will treat the relationship as a perfect enhancement to their lives.

Hollywood rumors are abuzz with scandals of celebrities who date or marry in order to cover the truth of their lives behind closed doors. Whether or not each and every story is truthful, the fact of the matter is these relationships are nothing more than business arrangements of the sort. Such an arrangement is fine between the two of them if they truly know what’s going on between them – after all it’s their business, and they’re purposely working to keep it concealed; both would have something to lose if the truth were revealed.

What Can I Do to Protect Myself from Being One of These Women?

First and foremost, a woman should learn to love herself enough to know when something compromises her beliefs or esteem. No man on Earth, not even George Clooney, is worth the trouble if his mode of operation includes trampling on your core values and rules for a relationship. As soon as you knuckle up and evaluate what you truly want and become self-confident, you’ll transform the dynamic between you and your cheating husband or boyfriend. Even if the dynamic ends the relationship, you’ll realize your value and determine the split was for the best, even if your heart feels irrevocably broken at the moment.

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