Star-Crossed Schmoopies
Cheaters get all the glory.
When infidelity is portrayed in movies, novels, or made for-TV dramas, cheaters are the tortured protagonists—sexy taboo breakers compelled by Forces Greater Than Themselves to love the forbidden Other. Tragic affairs are the stuff of pathos and romance. Oh, the crushing indecision, being torn between two lovers, thwarted by the cruel, cruel forces of monogamy. Poor cheaters. All they seek is happiness. And can you fault happiness?
Left offstage, standing in the curtain’s shadow, is the chump—the Obstacle to Happiness.
(Familiar? It’s the intro to my book.)
Hello Obstacles! How’s that narrative working for you? Crushed any dreams lately? Or are you perfecting your powers of dull sexless obstinance?
Chumps need better PR. Somehow we’re always the losers in those complicated love rhombuses. Or the villain. (Come on, we deserved falling down that mining shaft.)
Today’s Fun Friday Challenge is to write your own elevator pitch for a better chump story. Oh sure we could bitch about Hollywood’s star-crossed Schmoopie obsession, but what they don’t know is that if you REALLY want narrative arc — try throwing the bastard out and starting over.
Why don’t you write it, Tracy?
Got this day job and a blog, Hon. But go ahead and pitch me, as the network execs say!
An elevator pitch is a storyline just long enough to share while trapped in an elevator. Like 30 seconds. Pithy.
Rewrite the narrative!
Star-crossed Schmoopies go for hike, take selfie with bear, are devoured, and become social media sensations posthumously.
Your turn.
TGIF!
No pitch
But yes please
Let’s change the narrative ????????????
Think “Gone Girl” but the girl stays gone and the cheater is sent to the electric chair. In the meantime, Girl changes name, posing as sister, and moves to South of France. Soon after, sister/best friend brings girl’s young kids ( and the life insurance payout) and they all live happily ever after. And scene.
Chump author writes this novel, makes millions, hires private eye to catch ex planning and carrying out a kidnapping and consensual-non consensual gang bang of one of his girlfriends, which disgusts the judge so much that he grants the Chump author full custody and she buys a villa in the French countryside where the whole family spend their summers together drinking wine and picking flowers. Author’s editor comes to France to beg her to write another novel, but she is now so blissfully happy, she can’t come up with another brilliant thriller/revenge fantasy plot. She has a brief love affair with the unmarried editor, but parts ways with him at the of the summer, excited about the thought that she will be the sole author of her new, happy life. And scene.
Yes. Let’s change the narrative RollerSkater! That’s how we can turn the tide; new PR. Here’s my pitch:
In a world where cheating and lying narcissists reign supreme, a seemingly disparate yet multi-million-person bevy of duped, heartbroken folk rise up and band together to fight the tyranny overcoming them and their families every day. Behold, Chump Nation is formed! Led by their fearless leader, Chump Lady, this new Justice League brings to the fight superpowers of Universal Bullshit Translation, Impenetrable Wall of No Contact, and the all new Acme Gaslight Fire Extinguisher. A new day is dawning; Chump Nation is bringing the light (and receipts).
Yes! Love it.
Love it !!
Good one
Elevator pitch: A vampire remembers in her human life how she was abandoned for a supposed “Greater Love”, and she makes it her mission to punish adulterers the world over – and no, she’s not going to turn these assholes to be like her, they don’t deserve vampiric powers. She’s just gonna drain them enough that they stay sickly and can’t hurt anyone else.
(I have to thank Charles DeLint for this one, his teenage vampire character Apple isn’t fighting adultery, but she does try to use her abilities to protect the innocent.)
Actually- how about:
He sunk his dick where he could
I don’t give a shit about “sunk costs.”
And so the story ends. And I live happily ever after… his ever after can remain a mystery thanks to grey rock and NC as it pertains when you have progeny.
The other thing that annoys me about Hollywood films is that if they cover infidelity and make the cheated-on person the protagonist they are always male. (i.e. it’s the woman’s fault) I still liked ‘Unfaithful’, though, with Richard Gere as the chump. It really hammered home the point that infidelity wrecks everything, forever. And is completely indefensible.
Read Goethe’s “The sorrows of young Werthe”, Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary”. They all suffered the self-inflicted consequences of being a narcissist and cheater.
I watched that movie with my now XH. When we watched it he had already cheated on me multiple times, but I had yet believed he did. I can easily see how someone would kill someone over adultery, but like Chump Lady says, “I don’t wish you dead” = you are forgiven. My XH’s “healthy female friend” who he celebrated her birthday with a lunch date ever single fucking year even before we got married, even though my birthday he could care less about — her mom was in jail for killing her dad or vice versa as I don’t remember. I bet my life that one of her parents was an adulterer. And his “healthy female friend” had no problem at all flirting and going out on “business” dates with married men. When your eyes are open to how everything works with manipulative people, you see how they work people for what they want.
Mine celebrated her birthday (which is five days before mine) with a lunch date on my birthday and spent more or her lunch than on the one birthday dinner date I was oh-so generously granted in five years. It’s a deliberate, albeit covert, “fuck you” when they do that. He also finagled an excuse to spend our wedding anniversaries with her. That’s “fuck you and fuck our marriage.”
I enjoyed Unfaithful because it does not glamorize cheating and shows how devastating it is to the chump. The cheater and OM are clearly portrayed as selfish, narcissistic creeps. I only wish he’d killed her and put her in the town dump as well, then hightailed it to some country with no extradiction treaty. That would have been a satisfying ending. However, it would not be realistic. Richard Gere’s character was clearly an uberchump, and therefore was willing to blame it all on the OM and forgive his scumbag wife. She would have done it again and again before he clued in that she was just no good. The writer seems to understand both the chump and the cheater mindset.
The ignoring of special events is one of the calling cards of the character disordered fuckwits! It’s 100% intentional in order to keep us off balance; wondering what we are doing wrong or what’s wrong with us that we can never be celebrated. It keeps us “trying harder” to win their time and attention.
My XH never celebrated my birthday until after my 40th birthday. I broke down in tears and cried to him that he never gets me a cake. Presents. Or even took me out for dinner. All he did every year was put a card somewhere for me to find. Like on the computer. How thoughtful. Not. And then he started celebrating my birthday, but even that was fucked up. He started taking off for work on my birthday, but never asked me to take the day off too! And he made it known to all his ho-workers/admirers that he was taking the day off for my birthday. He’d ask his female admirers cake recipes so that they knew he was making me a cake. What a great husband!!! NOT! I’d even say to him when I left for work, “Have a nice day off a work on my birthday.” Heavy sarcasm in my head when I said this to him.
He never acknowledge Mother’s Day for me. But he’d say Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers at church and his relatives, but not me. One Mother’s Day while we were waiting for his family to come to our home for a party that his mommy volunteered our house for (AKA Martha does all the work AGAIN!); I said to him, “Aren’t you going to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day?” He said and I quote, “You are not my mother.”
He never got my anything for our wedding anniversary. 20th anniversary he really surprised me by getting me a beautiful wrap for my engagement ring. He gave it to me when we were at a Sandals resort, celebrating our upcoming anniversary. We had a fabulous time and I truly thought everything was right and wonderful with our marriage. Four months later he found out his whore was getting a divorce. Two months after that his whore was divorced and he asked her out on a date. Two months after that he said he wanted a divorce, because he “wanted to be with someone who trusts him 100%.” Well, I 100% now trust that he sucks! Oh, and my engagement ring and 20th anniversary wrap? Well, according to him, they belong to him. He put them as HIS jewelry on his financial affidavit. I put a curse on them and gave them back to him. HE SUCKS and whatever he did with the diamonds or money he got for them — it’s cursed with bad karma!
I could go on and on about how he invalidated me and made me feel not worthy of his time, attention and effort.
I will have to watch that movie again!! After figuring out I was a chump, it will for sure be different viewing it this time!
Ignoring special events is one of their traits. I would order my own Birthday cake, which I did more for our son and family that would stop by to wish me a Happy Birthday.
I remember one year going to the bakery and ordering my cake, they asked what I wanted written on the cake, I told them “Happy Birthday Brit” the girl behind the counter says, Isn’t that your name?
Same here, Brit. I made a lot of birthday cakes for myself and I did it for my kids. He ruined my birthday and Mother’s Day for years!
Ouch! LOL, I’m laughing with you, not at you. One Xmas he gave me a small stuffed animal from the pharmacy we had stopped at. How do I know? he presented it to me in the plastic bag. I threw a surprise bday party for him, he cheated a month later because “I neglected him, what did I expect?” He said “I thought you didn’t love me any more.” There was some truth to that. I had grown to hate his selfishness, and the slackly has started to wear pretty thin by then. I Never got a birthday celebration until he cheated, and then he was only hoovering. I stayed 3 more years. Surprise! No more bday celebrations for me. The pick me dance was not only painfully humiliating, but ultimately fruitless. Of course, the deck was stacked against me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqtjHWlM4lQ
Gorilla, it’s funny, made me laugh that you thought it was funny. It made me stop and question what I was doing.
I made the excuse that his family didn’t celebrate birthdays or holidays like other families. Poor ex didn’t know any better. Ex is an adult, his birthday was always celebrated. You don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to order a cake.
Have you watched the movie, When Mars Attacks? the Martians bring robotic women to earth from Mars to blend in with humans. That’s the picture that comes to mind when I picture myself married to ex.
For his birthday I’d have friends and family over, order a cake, decorate with happy birthday banners and balloons.
He loved being the center of attention..,
Out of no where ex in a somber voice, Brit, you never loved me.
I didn’t know how to respond. Maybe he assumed my not saying anything, he was right.
Keeping this post short because they’ve been disappearing…
Our last Christmas together as a family; he forced me to act like we weren’t getting a divorce in front of our kids, because he didn’t want to ruin Christmas for our kids. He gave me a book that I didn’t want and no lie, a Tim Horton’s gift card. Tim Horton’s is the coffee place he met his whore at for their before work coffee dates. You can’t make this shit up!
Oops. The spackel had started to wear thin.
Gifts to you become your personal property, even if they’re from your spouse. Why did you give your rings to him?
I gave them back to him, because I didn’t want them. I then and now could care less about their monetary value. For me, the engagement ring meant a commitment to me and a vow to God. The rings only meant to him $$$$. When I was still living with the adulterer, I offered an equal exchange for his $300ish wedding band for my $5,000ish engagement and anniversary rings. He wouldn’t take the exchange, because of IMAGE MANAGEMENT. He wore his wedding band to work each day even though he was divorcing me for a whore and committing adultery yet again. All that matters in his make believe world is what people think of him. So if he needed to wear the ring I put on his left hand until the day we divorced, he’d do it even though he fucked a lot of whore’s our entire marriage. Wedding rings and vows mean nothing to him. In his world, his god only wants him to be happy.
Martha, I was naive believing that Cheater and most people were honest and had a conscious. Unfortunately I was wrong. If something smells like a rat there’s a rat.
“When your eyes are open to how everything works with manipulative people, you see how they work people for what they want.” A true statement, looking back I see clearly the manipulation from not only Cheater but other people such as Switzerland friends, before, during and after D’day.
My eyes are open, I look at action not words. As soon as I feel that there’s something off it is Learning to trust my intuition.
Brit, I was the same way too; always trusting and always believing most people were honest and had a conscience. I love this quote: When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. ~Maya Angelou. Yep! Learning to trust my intuition too. And trust actions, not words. This has been a huge all-around learning experience! I now see my former pastor for who he really is. The first time I met him, which was maybe ten years ago. He went on and on about himself for well over a half hour. I knew about overt narc’s at the time, but had no clue I was married to one (covert)! I remember saying to myself, “he’s a narc!” But I brushed it aside as he was a pastor and he was so welcoming, loving and “I love you guys” with hugs and all. Now I see that as love-bombing by a pastor. After he got us to feel welcome at his church by coming and hugging us every single Sunday; he then moved onto other new people. After D-day, we went to counseling with him and we were with him about four hours the first time. He talked about himself and his marriage for about three of the four hours and that’s the God’s honest truth! He later went onto lie to me three times and later said to me a few times, “I never said that!” (gaslighting). He rationalized, justified and minimized everything my XH was doing and ever did in our marriage. He supported my XH by going out for coffee with him and not holding him accountable for all he was doing to me. Now if I would have trusted my intuition when I first met him, I wouldn’t have been emotionally and spiritually gutted by him and that stupid church! My eyes are WIDE OPEN now and I’m so grateful for it! I feel like I can keep myself safe now and can walk away EARLY before getting caught-up in another toxic relationship or church!
I came across that movie a while ago while flipping channels. It had been forever since I had watched it. Watching it after being chumped was tough.
To the question, “Are you married?”
I answer, “I was married, but he was a bad man, and I told him, ‘Hit the road Jack, and don’t ya come back no more.'”
To which I receive chuckles, and observe shivers, smiles, and “Ohhhhhh.”
Idyllic marriage with a beautiful home, 2 beautiful children, two professional careers. College sweethearts. They have it all. He cheats and has the wife arrested for fake DV charges (yes, this actually happened to me). She loses the house, and the children, and has suicidal thoughts and makes on serious attempt. And then one day, she realizes that it wasn’t her fault and that she isn’t a bad person. She gets her dream job, gets her own place, gets her children back, finds true love. Now-ex husband dies of an STD of Hollywood’s choosing.
Congrats, No More Chump! You left a cheater and gained a life!
This is AWESOME!!!
Omg this is so me my ex cheater did this to me as well, exactly the same thing! I was also arrested and thrown out of my own home!
Cheater X tried that on me as well. It didn’t work out for him. Yes, he eventually got the house and moved his student-slut on in, but only after I spent months packing up everything that belonged to me and half of what belonged to us, and received a tidy sum as a property settlement. I was feeling magnanimous enough to ask that he not be prosecuted for his false police report. I never wanted to lay eyes on him again.
What happened after was not my concern, but it went like this. Cheater X was placed on administrative leave and later fired from his tenured professorship after he and his university employer were sued for X’s misconduct. Student-slut played a supporting role in that saga, so the star-crossed lovebirds divorced in an unfriendly manner. X developed a painful degenerative disease and became addicted to opioids, foreclosing any possibility of gainful employment not already lost due to misconduct. After being institutionalized most of the time for several years, X died. Six months later, his obit appeared in a national magazine and the congratulations poured in.
By then, I was packing for a cruise, the highlight of which was marrying an adorable former chump on a beach in the Caribbean. The End.
I didn’t get arrested, but scumbag Xh (at his whore’s urging) filed a RO against me. Skankenstein did an Injunction Against Harassment 10 days before. Attorney told me not to fight it as it was just a civil matter, if I lost the fight, it would be a criminal misdemeanor.
I was hoping for instant and nuclear karma, but I guess his/hers will be done by 1000 cuts. I may never know and I’m now ok with that but I do love a good karma story Survivor! Thanks for sharing.
Karma takes time. Over ten years from “let me clear you out of the way” to pushing up daisies in my case. I’ll admit I found the news of Cheater X’s downfall and demise vaguely satisfying, but was mostly relieved to have been nowhere near any of it.
Survivor, great karma story! And I’m so happy your story had a happy ending. 🙂
Wow – karma did take her time, but what an ending!
I’m so happy that your life turned out well and that you have peace…
WOW, I don’t think I can top this one!!
NoMoreChump, I can see it now:
The Academy Award for Best Picture goes to NoMoreChump’s “Gone Like a Fart in The Wind”.
“As God as my witness, I’ll never be chumped again!!”
Audience gives NoMoreChump a standing ovation!
Cheating Wasband finds his soulmate 20 years his junior. Two adorable kids loathe the Ho-worker live-in and find their voice and are heard by the court. Awesome nurse mom gets her NP, full custody, the man she was meant to be with (who was also a chump), shows her kids what MIGHTY looks like while the ex gets diaper duty at age 50 and a bitchy young wife who has lost her luster.
Excellent!
Yesss!!!!!
IGainedALife – Love your story too! My XH is 48 and has diaper duty and a bitchy young schmoopie too. Congrats on your new happy life!
My ex has diaper duty too, only with his Kitten he plays house/DDLG with. Threw his wife and kids to the curb once confronted about his cheating ways. Claimed Kitten needed him more, I learned what that meant months later when our daughter nearly died of an illness in the hospital and he could careless. He had Kitten to take care of. The kids and I are much happier without him in big girl panties!!!
What is it with these grandpa daddies? skankboy is with whorella and her two kids, one a female teen and a preteen boy???
It makes them feel young again (for a few months).
I think they are crazy!
Yes, I agree Carol. Totally crazy. I’ll be retired in about 10 years. “Grandpa Daddy” is going to have a kid starting college when he’s 65. No retirement for him I guess.
I like this one a lot!
Wife #3 becomes a sleuth to Cheater’s activities, contacting Wife #2 in the process. Wife #2 was, according to him, the one who cheated and left, but that was a lie. Huge lie. Phone calls, clandestine meetings, silly text messages between the two women have them becoming good friends, with the support of Cheater’s own kids, Wife #2’s new husband, and the family of Wife #1 (who is no longer with us). It’s the best kept secret in town, until Wife #3 is able to leave. After Wife #3 leaves and realizes she’s going to need to earn a lot of money to make up for what he stole, she and Wife #2 casually dream up a business so they can both recoup their losses. Only it’s not a dream. It’s real. It’s a way they can tell their story, make some side cash, and help others in the process! And he’s still clueless!
And this, my friends, is a true story. We hope to be up and running before the end of the year.
Let us know when it’s up and running! I’d love to be one of your first customers! ????????♥️
PLEASE LET US KNOW WHEN YOU’RE OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!! SO VERY COOL!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
Hate to be a downer but are we saying wife #1 passed away? Shit.
hey, I am glad for the rest of the story but as a 1st wife who put her wasband thru ALL of the years of magical training that entitled him to a 7 fugue salary & 3 kids whom he has ghosted, that just sucks.
Doc’s wife – Fugue works too! (a state or period of loss of awareness of one’s identity, often coupled with flight from one’s usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy)
sorry, ** 7 FIGURE salary, as opposed to the 6 figure. Evidently, I had held him “back from the big bucks” while raising our 3 kids & working for the 1st 2 decades, by saying things like “we don’t need more money, we need more family time.” 35 years of marriage & 3 grown children…
What a greedy bitch I was.
Whoa – Great story. Please let us know when you are up and running. That’s one business I’d like to support.
Wow, now that’s a Hollywood ending! Congrats!
This is…I…wow. You are the epitome of mighty.
The show starts with the typical chump being the obstacle. As it progresses, the consequences fall hard on the adulterer and the side piece in small and big ways and they are clueless as to why, but the audience knows. Adam Sandler plays the chump so the whole thing is hilariously redemptive.
A vigilante “Schmoopie” trolls Ashley-Madison, Craigslist, and conference bars looking for cheaters. She/he gives their spouses the evidence and tools to expose/dump the cheater, leave them with nothing, and helps them become mighty. Or it could be a TEAM doing this ala The Justice League.
I should say, “helps the chump become mighty”. Kind of like what the CN does.
Unable to resist the siren song of Twu Wuv, Jaime Lannister relapses, leaving super cool Brienne at Winterfell and makes his way back to King’s Landing to Cersei. He finds her, gazing out from the balcony as King’s Landing is rendered Extra Crispy by an enraged Daenerys Targaryen.
Staring adoringly into her eyes as they embrace, Jaime reaches around and…..
PULLS OFF HIS FACE TO REVEAL ARYA STARK, WHO THEN PUSHES CERSEI OFF THE BALCONY.
(How I wish I had the powers of Arya Stark to have some fun with the cheating accomplice!)
Alternate ending: Jamie kills Cersei. Cersei dies with the knowledge that Jamie killed her. ARYA RIPS OFF HER JAMIE FACE.
Yes!!!! That is how GoT should have ended and in real life for a Chump!!!
YES! ^^^^This ^^^^ is the ending we all needed. (In GoT, and in real life!)
I thought the cheated on wife in Crazy Rich Asians handled things pretty well. I was happy with the way that whole affair was portrayed and how it played out. Then they went and made the protagonist’s mother a cheater too (oh, but that’s ok because her husband was a “bad man” and her lover helped her get through “difficult times” before he went poof as soon as she turned up pregnant and had to run for her life). Damn. They were doing so well and then they ruined it. Of course none of that reflects on the protagonist herself.
So the young lady protagonist survives a childhood of alcoholism and narcissism with parents who want nothing but riches and forget their daughter in their endless pursuit of wealth and status. The girl leaves home a young teen finding solace in an old fashioned hospital nursing school where she learns a trade to put a roof over her head.
During her schooling, she meets a charming spitfire of a mixed race maverick from the frontier who she falls madly in love with. She dreams that the happiness which eluded her in childhood can be found with this man.
They marry and have children but his endless and increasing ennui leaves her forever trying to make him happy – he claims this or that would improve things yet no matter what she does, he moves the goal and blames her for his unhappiness.
The girl grows up raising the family and the blame turns to abuse but she never stops trying. His sudden death leaves her heartsick which only increases as she discovers his dark hidden secrets amongst his papers.
The woman throws off her shackles, finds true love, applies her skills to new modes of nursing care that make her an internationally known expert and sought after speaker and positive changer-of-the-world. Ironically, in the mix she acquires the very wealth she never wanted but was forever coveted by those who abandoned her. She travels the world and does good.
Awesome!!! Congrats, UNM!!!
And the Oscar goes to… unicornNoMore!!!
Bravo and well done!!! ♥️????????♥️????????
I love your story!
UNM: I ❤️❤️❤️ Your story!
Love the end to this story!
Wow! ????????
It’s a chilly, rainy day in Cheatopia. A woman is watching heavy raindrops beat faded peony petals from their stems as she drinks coffee. Her eyes are brimming with tears as she has flashbacks of finding those texts, of all the times her husband had to step away from dinner, from watching the kids games, from her own birthday party… to go to the store for 2 hours in order to get something nobody really needed. Just then, she thinks of last night… when she saw the old family car parked at the park. She sneaks up on it good naturedly, thinking she’ll be slowing down her teenaged son and his girlfriend… and finds her husband’s head, thigh-deep into her best friend.
One giant teardrop falls into the coffee and she snaps in a massive breath.
Her eyes suddenly shine mischievously… she has some cleaning to do. And she’s starting with a tidy new case of Hefty bags (sponsors, y’all) and his side of the closet.
insistonhonesty, I’m sorry this happened to you. Keep going mighty lady with your story!
I don’t want to live with a alcoholic, drug taking prostitutes using piece of crap. What sort of example is that for kids.
It’s my childhood they might say, why treat your kids like that.
I had bad childhood I don’t use infected prostitutes, he did.
Not a pitch, but every time I hear the term ‘star crossed” I think of this song by Lenny and The Squigtones (and I accept that I’m showing my age by referencing this).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62C42nrpT0c&w=560&h=315%5D
UXworld,
Ha! I thought you were a youngster. I loved Laverne and Shirley. Don’t remember this song, but it’s so true.
I had this cassette tape! What a flashback!
Oh my gosh, Lenny and The Squigtones! I LOVED Lavern and Shirley! Penny Marshall was genius as Lavern with her Milk and Pepsi and large letter L on all her sweaters!
It was great to see a show in which the female leads were strong, confident women making their way through life, working and paying their own ways at a time when single women were mostly expected to marry and become a housewife and Mother. In essence, a comedy that quietly pushed strong and independent women to the forefront of American life.
I’m 52 and don’t know this one.
A middle aged man, who lives a tortured life with his attentive wife and three beautiful children decides to attend a car racing event in another part of the state. He places and personal ad on Craigslist for a hookup because he can’t stand how horrible his life is. The man who answers, a dashing college professor, sweeps him off his feet and they begin a torrid 5 yr affair, communicating only in French at times. Despite pleas from the college professor, the man refuses to leave his wife, but professes his undying love for the college professor, declaring he has found love he never knew existed. They agree to exchange last names. They travel together, barely able to contain the sexual chemistry between them! What the college professor does not know is that the middle aged man is having simultaneous ”love relationships” with at least two other men in different parts of the state, and is hooking up with other men every chance he gets. Watch as the man’s wife finds out! Be amazed at the horror when all three men find out about each other! It’s a love polygon that you won’t be able to take your eyes away from!
I’ve often thought this part of my life would make a good movie
Well dang…you do have a wild plot twist and (oddly enough) it would make a good movie. It has an almost “Crying Game level” twist where you think its a man forced by society to me untrue to himself who is just trying to find love but in reality he was betraying not only the star-crossed lover but the wife and the other men on the string where you learn he loved no one but himself. Damn
Im super sorry that you lived this.
@unicornomore, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Honestly, when people hear what actually happened, they think I’m making it up LOL. I thought about adding a fantasy plot twist where they sneak away on a dreamy trip to CA wine country in a red convertible and get lost, then decide to call the unsuspecting wife for directions. She of course drops whatever she is doing and checks the computer and delivers turn by turn directions for them (to this point 100% true) but unbeknownst to her husband, she has figured out what is going on and sends them off a cliff in their convertible to their fiery deaths at the bottom of the canyon. I like that ending 🙂
I don’t really have a movie storyline. But I did envision a Thelma and Louise style ending. Exbf, cheater with boy toy in back seat screaming out STOOOPPPP!!
Maybe I’m just feeling a bit more bitter than usual but the Lorena Bobbitt story feels like the perfect example….even though infidelity wasn’t a factor-.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.mamamia.com.au/lorena-bobbitt-penis-case-explained/amp/
When the Lorena Bobbit story hit it was very shocking to hear about someone cutting off her husbands penis. I have no doubt now that she was abused by him. His ACTIONS post-sewing his dick back on was porn actor *star* and saying he didn’t abuse her. I don’t condone hurting a cheating spouse, but I myself wanted to hurt my now XH when I was going through all the trauma he was causing. Now I say like Chump Lady says, “I don’t wish you dead. Consider you forgiven.”
Anger is a very normal & powerful force for un-chumping. Harnessed it can drive us to the “gain a life” part of the story. These mind fuckers who abused us really do hate it when we get to meh, remove all kibbles and cut them off from the source. NC or, in the case with kids in the mix, Grey boring no emotion Rock is one of the best tools leading to peace and a fuckwit free life.
IMO Ms Bobbit let the rage get the better of her. Understandable? Perhaps? But not the best outcome for her in the long run.
You look like you’ve got strength, power & know strategy (based on the derby gear/skater) image. I’m certain you can use your inner skills to play the long game in whatever endeavors you aim for. Your fuckwit will become old news, and you will show how mighty you are!
A former chump realizes that her incredible investigative skills would be better used to make money than be the marriage police forever. She divorces her cheating husband and with her sizable settlement, opens up her own private investigation firm, which is enlisted by police to help crack cold cases.
I suppose she could’ve been a PI to help other chumps, but in this film, the cheating spouse is not central to the story. She’s got the rest of her life to live.
Whoa – Great story. Please let us know when you are up and running. That’s one business I’d like to support.
Here’s a great pitch, lol:
Star crossed lovers meet while he, a pushing-40 vainglorious Army pilot, checks into a hotel at his new assignment in Southeast Asia. Shmoopie is an under-employed (and shortly to be unemployed) mid-twenties trainee with bad skin and Evangelical parents, looking for an American to bait into bringing her here.
She uses obvious feminine wiles and a ridiculous sob story about the parents to woo him. She brainwashes the dullard soldier and gives him syphilis.
He goes mad due to the untreated disease, because he’s too oblivious to notice the symptoms….and everyone in his social circle is so used to his ridiculous behavior that they, too, never notice in time. Tragically, she dies when a rack of free weights falls on her while working out with the vainglorious Soldier.
Soldier lives on in a miserable, disease ridden state, so his beautiful, selfless ex-wife can continue to collect her share of his Army pension forever. The end.
Brilliant, Liz C., great story, the ending is hilarious.
This is what I’m picturing. A movie, and the Cheater is the unreliable narrator who stops the action to explain various things, presented out of order, and it only all makes sense at the end. Something along the lines of Robert Downey, Jr.’s character in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” In the end, the Cheater admits that there wasn’t really a great reason, they just felt like it.
An Unreliable Narrator structure is Genius!
Nuts, that wasn’t supposed to be a reply to Liz. My reply to Liz is: “Ooh, neurosyphilis, that’s bleak. Love it.”
The scene opens with a lovely home and family. All is right, the high school sweethearts are living an enviable dream with 2 daughters and a wife worshipping the man of the house. But the *cough*…. man… is bored with it all and feels like he needs “more.”
He begins to search for some meaning in life by having secret little lunches with young co-workers who make him feel special. He pushes the boundaries repeatedly because it takes more to get the same tingling high. He takes his family to the hairy edge of destruction and thrills at watching it all get pulled back by the wife. He feels central and high like no other time.
But, after a few years the boredom returns. He begins again with the lunches and long talks. He starts to work away from home for longer periods of time and more exotic trips and completely ignores the family. He especially loves the high he gets by working over in the Middle East and spends months and months there.
After a while he falls for a ho-worker half his age, abandons his family and wife of 30 years, loses all contact with his daughters. He has destroyed everything he had for the ultimate high of the adoration of this young chick. He is exuberant.
But, the boredom returns. As he ages, he realizes he is a complete fool and how much he gave up–he doesn’t know his grandchildren- and finds a way to make amends. He respects the wife and her new (better) wonderful husband but has found a way to acknowledge how awful he was. The movie ends with him reflecting on his terrible choices and becoming an anti-cheating advocate and counselor for wayward men facing mid life crises.
WHAM BAM! Smash cut to him found ACTUALLY on his knees in an orange jumpsuit, being filmed by a maniac group of religious fanatics. The audience realizes everything in the last few scenes was a dream. He is deep in his affair and he has been working in the Middle East, but instead of completing his original abandonment and ultimate reconciliation with his soul he is now doing to be murdered publicly and viciously. The audience realizes the last scenes were just his memories flashing through and all of his deep, deep regrets. All he can think of is how he would give EVERYTHING he ever had to spend just one more day in that simple life and love his wife and daughters like he should have before he got “bored” and ruined everything.
Close scene.
ESCAPE FROM THE RIC (cue jaunty adventure music)
Backstory, told in PTSD flashbacks: After nearly twenty mostly stay-at-home years of trying to get Horace to love her, Madge discovered that his real interests were, and had always been, himself and porn. She earned her Marriage Police badge and went on constant patrol fighting his “addiction.” They went into therapy and she embraced the RIC, pick-me dancing like a pro on Dancing With the Online Cheaters. He got better…at lying. Another decade passed. She saw all the signs of a major relapse, but ignored them until one day she couldn’t anymore.
As our movie begins, Madge is lying in bed, sick with a monster virus and the effects of D-Day. She is reading the employment ads while sobbing. She is convinced she can’t make it on her own, but she can’t live this way anymore. She gets over the virus, opens up to friends, gets help outside the RIC, and finds Chumplady.com. She learns to ignore his gaslighting, condescension, DARVO, sabotage, self-pity, rage, and charm. She survives sharing housing with him, and investigates public housing. She turns in her Marriage Police badge and uniform for a tailored business suit in tasteful rock-gray, likes how it looks in the mirror, and goes out to battle her own underemployment instead of someone else’s demons. For months upon months, she applies for jobs. She does temp work while holding down her part-time and freelance work as well. One day, nearly a year after D-Day, she finds herself a good FT job in a different town. As the moving van pulls out of the driveway, she does not look back.
What becomes of Horace? That’s up to him.
Madge, I love this. I cannot imagine how infinitely terrifying and exhausting certain periods must have been, it must have felt insurmountable, but then, a great job!! And a new life… and exit stage left.
Huge props to you.
It certainly didn’t feel that linear! Months and months of very small changes amid total uncertainty, and then suddenly everything changed in a few weeks.
????
MIGHTY Madge!!!
Chump finally gets shed of her screwball spouse and leads a much better life than she ever did with him. Meanwhile he fails in his attempts to find a young, slim woman despite years of online dating searches. He realizes that his kids only use him as an ATM. The original skank he destroyed his marriage for has remarried. Leaving him to age out alone because women his age are too old for him, and the young ones don’t want him…..
Beautiful bohemian woman changes herself to become the perfect wife to a boring man. Boring man cheats on wife because she is now boring — with beautiful bohemian woman 10 years younger.
Wife dumps man (cause she’s not about all that) and regains herself.
ExHusband marries new woman.
ExWife goes on fantastic solo trip to Hawaii. But Oh oh, ex husband goes to Hawaii too – on honeymoon with new wife. New wife is now boring too.
ExWife is having a great time at hotel bar, she’s all bright and glittery, all eyes are on her. Ex-husband’s eyes are on her too (sleezy jerk). New wife decides to go to bed (doesn’t know ExWife is there) so ex-husband decides to approach Ex-wife. Just as he’s about to hit on her, a handsome young bohemian man cuts in front like ex-husband doesn’t exist. Ex-husband goes back to hotel and acts all sulky to new wife for rest of honeymoon.
Father of eight, who has never been with anyone other than unfaithful wife, is forced to take an STD test at 51. Gives up the house in exchange for no alimony and keeping all his pension. Finds an acceptable apartment close to schools. Remains attentive to the children, making them cookies and brownies, taking them fishing, doing their laundry. Tries hard to keep their childhood ordinary, and fun. Nothing dramatic or cathartic. Just some good days after some really bad days.
Similar story here; 51, faithful husband to a cheating wife, but only one child (my stepdaughter). Also, XW (stepdaughter’s mother) took part of my retirement, as well as a mutual fund I set-up for my stepdaughter, in exchange for me keeping the house, providing a stable environment while trying to be a good role model – daughter spends her time “home” with me (stepdad) and not her mother (the manipulative, lying, incredibly selfish woman-child).
Captain Chumpy, good for you for stepping up! No pun intended… It makes me sad for your stepdaughter that she has a mom like that, and glad that you are in her life to be an actual parent. Over and over again I find myself shaking my head hearing people’s stories here.
Story starts of Narc living a secret life. Wife with toddler finds out and asks for Divorce. Narc threatens daily that Wife will have to pay spousal support, child support, give him her 401K, as well as 50/50 even though he never had anything to do so far with raising baby. Story ends with Wife survived divorce, has her baby more of the time, doesn’t have to pay spousal support, HE pays a minimal child support and had to give wife some of HIS 401K. During divorce Wife found her Knight in shining armor who helps her every step of the way in every aspect imaginable. Now Single wife has it all. Fantastic job, her own place back (that he tried to take), The child and now the Knight with minimal interaction with Narc since he really doesn’t show up to childs events. (even though he cried how he just wanted so badly to be part of her life)
Oh and now Narc has to pay his own medical insurance, his own health insurance, his own cell phone bill, his own rent….. He may have a new GF but still extremely unhappy because he will never amount to anything worthy of any good people. His inner self is too ugly. He will never be satisfied.
My answer? Bummer. Narcs are eternal parasites. If they complain about not getting enough, it just means they’re only getting ten times what they give, instead of 100 times more. This is why they threaten their chumps with financial disaster if the chump even considers walking away. They “can’t afford” to lose such a stream of personal and financial support.
What is interesting to me is just how many cheaters underestimate the intrinsic value and fortitude of their chumps. That shortcoming seems to have saved many of us. We dig our heels in, pick up the laboring oar, and do what has to be done. While they scratch their heads and wonder how long we’re going to be mad. The notion that absolute limits exist doesn’t cross their minds.
And to each of these stories let us all add in Very Visible Mouth Herpes / Warts.
Why limit those things to the mouth? Or even herpes and warts? Crusty pustules work well in so many situations.
I’d love to write a clever, pithy elevator pitch, but my story is oh so stereotypical and cliche that a smothering of creative whim would only render it yawn-worthy at best.
That aside, happy Friday, Chump Nation!
Cheater, a gorgeous, well-dressed knockout, desperate–out of boredom, ennui, and a need for new kicks– to find ANYONE other than their SO to fuck, goes down to a bridge underpass where she knows there are homeless men living. She picks out 4 potential balling buddies by smelling under their armpits. Taking one home, she tells the other 3, “I’m saving you studs for later.”
After a night of having torrid sex in every orifice (including nostrils, ears and behind the knee), he breaks it to her: “I better go, it’s time I’m supposed to take my AIDS medicine.”
lol 🙂
Now that’s funny. I don’t care who you are????
A rom com with schmoopie and her new fuckwit as loving parents to her child. Set in a perfect home and with doting soccer mom and soccer dad living the godly family life. Bad acting from Kirk Cameron fills this redemptive Christian movie production with cliche onliners, predictable storyline, and church service finale during which chumps 1-5 extend loving forgiveness to fuckwit and schmoopie. Chick-fil-A sponsored and approved.
God brought them together. This wonderful film shouldn’t be available in all school libraries.
SHOULD
Hellooo, watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel if you haven’t yet. Chump hero! And that doesn’t mean she’s perfect, but that makes her all the more real. Also, I don’t really know what direction her storyline is going, but so far it’s very much cut a cheater out, gain a life.
Love that show!!!
Oh my gosh, Lenny and The Squigtones! I LOVED Lavern and Shirley! Penny Marshall was genius as Lavern with her Milk and Pepsi and large letter L on all her sweaters!
It was great to see a show in which the female leads were strong, confident women making their way through life, working and paying their own ways at a time when single women were mostly expected to marry and become a housewife and Mother. In essence, a comedy that quietly pushed strong and independent women to the forefront of American life.
Mine would be a reality tv show on how chumps gain a life. It would depict all the fabulous stuff chumps do without morally flawed assholes dragging them down. Freedom from abuse is great!! I love happy endings where the chump truly wins and the poor cheater no spotlight for u because u suck!!
I so want to see a show like that, starring people from CN.
On his deathbed he begs for his lifelong lover to his long loyal wife and mother of his 10 children. She denies him and lets him die. Neither he nor his lover get to say goodbye.
The wife to her own children says “Never has a women who loved her husband liked his whore.”
Catherine de Medici 16th Century Chump, Queen, Regent, mother of Kings, Princes and Princesses, Ruthless badass.
Our heroine (picure wafty scarves, crystals) rescues a poor injured/abused man she finds on a dating site.He is so traumatised that he intially forgets he is
A. married
B.seeing several other men and women.
But she understands this is all because of the abuse of his ogre of a wife and welcomes him into her home to live with her two special needs daughters without a second thought. Eventually she buys them a house, they marry and they live happily ever after. Cut to man busy on his phone firing up his old Ashley Maddison account.
Cut again to the ogre and her children living a poorer but happier life.
Cut back to our heroine cleaning a filthy toilet with the song about the woman and the snake playing in the background.
It’s been written, we just don’t pay enough attention;
“That’s when Glinda points with her wand to the ruby slippers, which have been on Dorothy’s feet the whole time she’s been in Oz.
“You had the power all along, my dear,” she tells Dorothy.”
^^^^ BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!! Thanks you @Magneto !
Husband finds married life a chore. He has to cut back on happy hours for the budget. He has to compromise too much. Too much is expected of him. Having a kid isn’t what he thought it would be. Life isn’t fun. He isn’t happy.
He cheats on wife and leaves her because she has cancer and that is just too much to handle. More responsibility? No thanks. He spends weeknights partying. Gets the first woman who shows him interest pregnant. She demands that he changes all the diapers, be home from work no later than 5:30 every night, all holidays are with her family and he must regularly do whatever boring thing she wants to do. One month after the birth of their child they get pregnant again. Now at age 44 he is up to his waist in child responsibility. He is expected to do even more than he complained about in his first marriage. He lost all of his friends because of how shitty he was to his first family. Now he relies solely on his new SO for friends. All his family traditions have been cast aside. But at least he has a separate bank account so the SO doesn’t see how much he spends on alcohol…
I’m liking this one! Lol
No pitch, but I’m really looking forward to coming home from working tonight and reading all the pitches!! I’ll be home around midnight, Chumps, so lots of time to write! 🙂
Also, Chump Lady, I really love this cartoon. Any chance it could be made into a mug, magnet and other fun stuff to be sold at your online store? 🙂
The List
A Bay Area underground hacker group of six women build an algorithm/software program that confirms and exposes cheaters. They publish “the list”- which includes a catalog of cheaters, complete with bios and a risk rating scale. Access to the list is approved with specific clearance from the group. With accuracy/precision unmatched, (read: the FBI/CIA freaks out) quickly the site and content grow. A new feature is added to “amber alert” via mobile phones/social media, when a level 5 “character fraud” is in public situations, with a high probability of doing harm.
The list then captures bios on several very high profile politicians, celebrities and international leaders- which leads into controversial congressional hearings on privacy. Ultimately the List is forcibly dismantled, but the story ends with a shift in social awareness- along with a sequel hint that the List is still out there…
Chump 1 meets chump 2 through their mutual cheating spouses. Become best friends, while supporting each other during divorce. Audience realizes they belong together before they do. Eventually they see it and they go on to live happier and more successful than before. Meanwhile their ex cheaters relationship crashes and burns and their lives never recover. The end. (Based on actual events with names changed to protect the guilty.)
Scene: Midafternoon. A darkened study.
Enter WIFE, on the hunt for envelopes. While bending down, she tips over a file folder on the printer desk. Embarrassed, annoyed with the size of her bottom, she begins to collect the scattered papers.
These include a restraining order, STD tests, a racy thank you card, and a collection of various nude selfies from at least 5 young women.
Close up on WIFE’s face; chalk white. Lighting and music should be reminiscent of a horror film, as when protagonist discovers severed head or locked door.
WIFE: I..I don’t..I.. I-I’m going–
Exit WIFE. Sounds of retching off-screen.
Scene: The Study. Fifteen minutes later.
Camera pans to WIFE standing in the doorway. She is pale but tall. A cellphone is in her right hand.
WIFE kneels by papers and lines them up one by one. Close up to her hands, fumbling with the phone’s camera function. They continue to shake for a few seconds then stop. Pan back out of room. Only intermittent flashes can be seen.
Fade to Black.
“You can’t help who you fall in love with.” Yes you can, grow up. “I didn’t mean to fall in love; it just happened.” No it didn’t just happen, grow up. “This is a love I’ve never felt before.” No it’s a lust you’ve never felt before, grow up. “Our love is written in the stars.” No it’s not, the stars don’t care about you, grow up. “This love was meant to be.” No, love does not come from lies and deceit, grow up. “I tried to stop loving this person, but I couldn’t get the person out of my mind.” No, grown ups can mediate their thoughts in understanding immature infatuation, so grow up. “You can love two people at the same time.” No, that’s not love, it’s selfishness, grow up. “We’ve been together this long so it must be love.” Ah, no, it’s desperation (and probably brokenness) at play, grow up.
Yeah, I don’t think I will ever have the patience for a forbidden “love” story for as along as I live.
I love this so much! Copied and pasted to my Chump Wisdom folder!!
I am envisioning a story in two major chapters.
The first one tells the story of a chump not portrait as a chump, but a nagging, bitchy, and controlling wife. And the sad husband putting up with her… until he finds true love in the form of another woman. With the help of the other woman, his life with the actual wife becomes much more tolerable and he is more relaxed and can support the family more effectively. The entire story is told from the perspective of the wife. Who is getting more and more convinced that she is a bad person. We see her in the therapist office how she narrates her family life and she just cannot seem to get things right, is constantly caught nagging and controlling by her husband, and she has lost all sexual interest and becomes more and more depressed until…she finds out about the affair(s) and tries to change, but she cannot seem to get things right.
She has an eye opening moment … and….
Chapter 2.
The entire chapter 1 gets re-narrated without the filters. We see what she thought was a loving husband as a manipulator and gaslighter. We see what she thinks is a good father and family man to actually be someone who barely contributes and finds excuses after excuses of why he needs to work late, has to travel, or needs to focus on projects outside of the house…
We see her entire life being a sham and she finally at the and of the movie has the courage to leave.
Love the dual perspective idea.
I would love to see a movie made in this genre..one from the Cheaters pov with them pretending to be nice and perceiving the Chump as tedious and deserving of abuse for small things she isn’t even aware of…Chump busting ass to do all parenting duties when Cheater is on important business trips (conveniently extended a day or 2 to allow for fucking).
Then the same situations are shown as they were with the Cheater being cranky, critical and endlessly impossible to please, absent from work and family responsibilities, giving Chump crap for “not being supportive” if the business trip goes long…
oddly enough, I think that is what Purgatory is like, we will have to look at a movie (for lack of a better descriptor) of our lives minus the filter we put over our consciences to excuse our selfishness. After living through many years of the abuse that you all know, I was strangely soothed after he died when I realized that now he KNEW what he did to me. (Full disclosure, I was a fab wife but am an imperfect person and will have to account for my failures too)
My life!
Ha! Torn between FIVE lovers (counting me)!! I’m surprised she wasn’t literally torn up….
BB
Charming, charismatic young man woos and marries a career-driven scientist. They have kids, buy a house. He takes a job as a biotech researcher and she is a professor. They appear to everyone to be the perfect couple. He starts to make more money, gets a new job and they move farther from his wife’s job. He begins traveling the world and calling himself professionally by his initials-which are the same as the name of a famous rap star. Everyone around him, even the stodgiest of colleagues indulge him. They all marvel at how amazing he is- idyllic home life-the career wife and the two talented girls and brilliant success at work. He is idolized. At home, he insidiously undermines the wife’s parenting. The wife slowly unravels, having slowly sacrificed her career for her family, giving up promotions that would mean late nights and more travel to care for the kids. He gets yet another job offer, this time 500 miles away. He convinces her to retire early, give up her pension and moves the family. A year later, she discovers he has been living a double life with a woman who has a child (possibly his, but she is married so it might be her husband’s) in another country. They have been together for 5 years. She gives him an ultimatum. He chooses the other woman. The divorce drags on because he tries to hide various investments from her. A year later he has a fatal heart attack while in bed with a prostitute on a business trip. He has dragged his feet with the divorce so they are still married. She and the kids get all the money. The other woman gets nothing. The wife gives a large sum of money to the ex-husband of her husband’s affair partner to raise the son and sets up trust funds for her girls. Everyone except schmoopie live happily ever after. The end.
For 19 years, Cheater tried to get Chump to quit smoking. He gives up cig and the.n chew by 2010. Late 2012 Chump smokes her last cig. Her weight balloons due to undiagnosed hypothyroidism. Meanwhile Cheater starts working out and dropping little statement that he claims are supposed to be uplifting but they are digs, each and every one.
Fast forward to 2018, Cheater has Schmoopie and after all these years, all weight lifting talks, and striving for a good health go out the window. He reeks of cig smoke and throws McD bags (once declared to the worst place to ever eat). He looks like shit.
Chump never takes up smoking even after the trauma of betrayal and the pain of of his mental cruelty. She starts eating better and loses 25 pounds with many more to go. She starts walking and birding again.
Cheater has an addiction-type personality. It’s predicted that he will die an early death due to poor living and lack of Chump’s love and caring. Schmoopie sticks by a ghost of a man and cries that she always has bad luck. Play with fire and you will get burned.
I like this one!!
A group of chumps get together and realize that their narc cheaters cheat at everything in life – business, taxes, etc. So they put their heads and relationship police superpowers together and gather blackmail info and grab the narcs by the proverbial balls. They have a confrontation with narcs, open up a chump club to help other chumps and the narc cheaters get to foot the bills forever while the chumps go on to live their fabulous lives – The First Wives Club.
Hubby who would never cheat finds a young shmoopie, knocks her up, divorces his wife and buys her out of her own home because shmoopie wants it. Discarded Chump goes to Italy courtesy of friends kicking her back into doing something besides sitting in depression in a dank apartment. A crazy idea while in Italy turns into gaining a fabulous cheater free life – Under the Tuscan Sun.
“Whatever Happened to Annie?”
Not a pitch per se, but “A Handmaid’s Tale” presents us with one episode about June (or “Offred”, the protagonist) and Luke’s affair. Annie, his first wife, confronts June, but Luke says she “doesn’t matter” and by the end of the episode, she slinks off after seeing June, Luke, and their baby.
I want to know what happens to Annie in this dystopian nightmare. Is Annie punished for a divorce she didn’t want? Does she escape to Canada? Does anyone else think Luke is a cad? He brushed off his first wife and didn’t seem to have a problem with his new wife having to depend on him when women could no longer have credit cards until shit got really bad. . .
I’m thinking about an Antoinette/Bertha Mason a la “Wide Sargasso Sea” here.
And while we’re here, what about The Four Seasons “Bye Bye (Baby Goodbye)”?