Cheating Songs That Drive You Nuts?
Do songs about mistresses and cheating hearts make you crazy? Which music glorifying infidelity makes you hurl is the Friday Challenge.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I love scrolling mindlessly on my Facebook and Instagram feeds because they’re usually filled with DIY projects, crafts, and other cool stuff.
Recently, however, I’ve been getting all sorts of clips with the background song “Unholy“. And I am driven up the walls with this… Glorification of, or at least nonchalance regarding cheating.
Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot
At the body shop
Doin’ somethin’ unholy
He’s sat back while she’s droppin’ it
She be poppin’ it
Yeah, she put it down slowly
Oh-ee-oh-ee-oh, he left his kids at
Ho-ee-oh-ee-ome so he can get that
Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot
At the body shop
Doin’ somethin’ unholy
Something “Unholy”, like it’s just merely not holy — which would be too much to aim for anyway, as mere mortals.
So, for a Friday challenge, I would love to hear everyone’s cheating-enabling songs that drive them up the walls!
Hope you and the community have a wonderful day,
HatefulChump
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Dear Hateful Chump,
Thanks for the Friday Challenge! Yep, that’s a residual effect of the chump experience — it’s harder to ignore, let alone ever enjoy, cheater protagonist pop culture.
Curse of enlightenment, really. Empathy. It’s the same reason you can’t watch racist mammy tropes in Gone With the Wind, or dumb bimbo hijinks on Benny Hill. (Who EVER thought this was funny? And I’m showing my age. Probably no one remembers him… good.)
But until the narrative changes, not enjoying the wink-wink-naughty-naughty frivolity of fucking around on your wife with sex workers will mark you as a prude. A wet blanket. The SNL Church Lady. The hairy-legged feminist who can’t take a joke.
Speaking of jokes, the meme here made me laugh. Apologies to the country music lovers. The genre is famous for cheating songs. Love the whole Carrie Underwood, wallop-their-truck-with-a-baseball bat oeuvre, however.
In fact, one of the BEST songs about mistresses and cheating in general — it’s my whole blog in one perfect song, complete with karma! — is Faron Young’s “Your Time’s a Comin’“. (Youtube link here, Spotify below. Check it out!)
So, CN, what cheating songs make you crazy?
TGIF!
For what it’s worth, the full music video for “Unholy” makes it clear that the wife realizes what’s going on and she and the singers are springing a trap for her wandering husband.
Yeah they basically call the FW a cheating sack of s**t while he lies (dead?) on the stage. Also, Sam Smith’s “not the only one” is a devastating portrayal of the excruciating pain faced by us Chumps. Not glorifying cheating at all from my perspective.
Sam Smith’s silly covid meltdown aside, his music is usually on the side of chumps and I thought the video was intentionally “Brechtian” or something Brecht called “gestics”– my favorite theatrical device. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq9gPaIzbe8
So, ahem, here’s my academic-y spiel on it: One of the deliberate effects of gestics is, as Brecht put it, to “get the enemy [audience] at close quarters and then unleash a seismic reaction.” The device is basically a prank or a trap to suck the more morally relativist members of the audience in, get them thinking what’s happening is an exoneration of being a callous piece of shit, get them tapping their toes, then flipping the message sickeningly into a ditch and holding up a mirror.
The song Mack the Knife in Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Weill does something similar since it starts out sounding like a sexy romanticization of a sociopathic gangster (Brecht’s Nazi analogy) but the killer’s deeds become more revolting with every verse, at least in the original German. Unfortunately most English versions of the song are whitewashed to remove the punchline/trap. Anyway, you can imagine the effect if a cheater heard “Unholy” on the car radio, thought it was FW flattery and grooved to it but then went on to watch the video to have a “WtF?” moment. Plus there’s a fun trap for homophobes in it and a bit of a socioeconomic theme since rich creeps tend to flagrantly perform their creepery in front of “the help” (hotel staff, Uber drivers, the auto shop workers in the video) unaware that the “little people” may be morally disgusted to the point of exposing and destroying the offender.
Tada, end of lecture series. 😉
This is exactly what I got from the song and the video, I really enjoy it for that. The use of unholy sounds like an amplifier, it’s not mundane or trivial, it is desecration. It nicely aligns with my experience that the “little people” are very happy to tell what they know about the cheaters.
Funny how I was thinking about this subject and aparticular song by Hot.
“The angel in your arms this morning
Is gonna be the devil in someone else’s arms tonight”
She’s married to a cheater so hey, let’s all cheat!
CL, the ex loved Benny Hill and probably still does, but who knows.
Me and Mrs Jones, Billy Paul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0_76JRjqDY
Our family name is JONES and as a child, men would sing this song to my mama so often, I thought it was her theme song. I thought it was cool for many years til I grew up and asked Mama about it. She said it was overwhelmingly annoying but she used the charm offensive. I did not know the song was about cheating until I was a teenager!
Yup, it’s a “cheater protagonist pop culture” and we’re just living it. It’s the proliferation of songs (books, cartoons, movies, whatever) that wink-wink-nudge-nudge the whole idea of getting chumped. The world shrugs and tells you it’s not a big deal because “the heart wants what it wants.”
So many “ha ha, I’m cheating” songs out there to pick from. Nowadays when one crosses my path, I screw up my face like I’ve just sucked a lemon and change the radio station. But back when it was fresher, I had to pull over to the side of the road to sob uncontrollably because the radio, playing a selection of Christmas songs (I thought I was safe with Christmas songs, of all genres!) and I was listening, actually listening, to the lyrics of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”–a song that, my whole life, I had taken to be generally wholesome.
There have been other cheater pop culture songs in my life, but none have affected me to the point where I had to stop driving so I could cry like that stupid Christmas song. I was freshly triggered for myself, sure, but I also acutely felt myself lose more of my innocence.
“I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus,” isn’t a song about cheating. It’s a song about a kid seeing his parents kissing and not realizing that Santa is actually his Dad.
And this is precisely why this particular song is now triggering to me…Mommy doesn’t kiss Santa Claus anymore, after he boinked the elf in his sleigh for two years.
I know but it didn’t hit me like that. It hit me from the observer’s (the child’s) perspective: gosh, what would Dad say if he knew?
Okay, fair enough.
“Pray For You,” Jaron and the long road to love.
Ha ha ha ha ha Faron Young ‘alone with you’ is what the FW sent (via social media) to schmoopie no1 (THEY WERE JUST GOOD FRIENDS GODDAMIT WOMAN). I stayed for 12 years after that DDay!
Newbies don’t be me. Time is precious, Your life is precious…. save it ❤️
Lips of an Angel,
“ Honey, why you calling me so late?
It’s kinda hard to talk right now
Honey, why you crying, is everything okay?
I gotta whisper ’cause I can’t be too loud
Well, my girl’s in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on
It’s really good to hear your voice saying my name….”
*Hits skip trac on
Came here to mention this one. So gross.
Oh yeah. This one gets me every time.
Ewww, that reminds me of when I found emails from cheater-ex to schmoopie, telling her, he wished he’d met her before he’d met me. Fuckwit.
FW told me that he married the wrong person and never should have married me. Right after telling me about all his cheating. WHO, exactly, married the wrong person? Cuz I beg to differ…
I don’t know. It amuses me that most cheater anthems are annoying, overwrought junk like this– the kind of thing I’d dial away from on the car radio before even hearing the lyrics. Let FWs be exiled to only listening to barfy canned crap. Plus there are so many stellar songs that condemn or mock cheaters and side dishes. You can imagine how, when a top artist releases an anti-FW hit, the artist’s work becomes a flinchy “no go” zone for FWs forever after.
Yup this one all the way. Side bitch texts it to fuckwit on the regular. Twu Wuv…..
I literally don’t listen to music anymore…
I seriously do not either! Well, no radio. It’s a station called smile FM. It’s Christian music it keeps me in my bubble. But I like it
I used to love singing with music. Klootzak would shut me down from singing songs and I just stopped listening to most music for a very long time. I miss it a lot. I have times when I can play music in the car by myself but I am so out of habit about even putting music on that I just drive in silence. It’s one of the things he took from me that I enjoyed and want back.
This happened to me, too. I used to be a singer. I’m trying to get a bit of my voice back after many years out of practice.
I actually had to avoid music temporarily after my divorce–too many emotional land mines. Fortunately, it wasn’t for long, but there are still a few songs that feel like a momentary punch in the gut.
Same! After 9yrs I still can’t listen to country🤮🤮🤮
Me too. Unless it’s really angry music!
The Chicks Gaslighter album was a lifesaver for me! Fleetwood Mac pretty good too. “Go your own way” “Silver Springs” ‘Little Lies’ ‘Dreams’ all great break up songs and songs about being cheated on.
Silver Springs is epic. There’s a live version on Youtube that I really think Stevie was casting on Lindsay the whole time. It’s every chump’s dream.
I heard a music hostorian talking about Fleetwood Mac. Apparently, You Make Loving fun was written so Christine McVie could taunt John McVie over an affair she was having (with a sound technician, if memory serves.) According to this historian, infidelity with the those two was commonplace, plus in the relationship of Buckingham and Nicks as well. Go Your Own Way was a fuck you to cheating Stevie Nicks.
Love love LOVE Fleetwood Mac/Stevie. “Stand Back” has been a fave for me.
Love Stevie Nicks! So help me if side bitch decides to co-opt any Fleetwood Mac for her “Wuv Language” before I am outta here I will need John Wick’s number…..
Barf 🤢 🤮
Hate that song
I HATE that song. HATE.
It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy.
I hate having my intelligence insulted. Given a binary choice I’d rather get bullshit excuses. This song simultaneously makes light of cheating and treats you like an idiot.
That song tops my list but when it first came out I was young and well, not thinking it through. I was a huge Shaggy fan and thought it was kind of funny 🙄 Unfortunately so did my ex husband. We used to sing “It wasn’t me” when we did something like forget to run the dishwasher to be cute to each other. So now I f’n hate that song for several reasons: it’s mysogynistic AF, I’m mad at myself for thinking it was ever funny, and also that the FW ex and I used the lyrics to be jovial to each other. Must’ve been even funnier for him knowing he was out there doing the same thing but he never got 🎵“caught red handed creeping with the girl next door”. Fuck that 🎶
I always took that song as mocking the idiocy of cheaters.
Agreed and it’s pretty funny because it’s so true. “She even caught me on camera.” Couldn’t we all imagine a scenario where a cheater was watching the video evidence of them cheating and still claiming “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”? In fact, I’m sure there’s plenty of stories of this exact scenario. They’re a special bunch.
Good point. I just posted about that song. I didn’t think of it as poking fun at cheaters but you’re right, it does. My favorite song these days to pep me up is Fuck You by CeeLo 😊
That one’s on my playlist.😁👍
I can actually find the humor on this one because it perfectly encapsulates the absurd mindfuck of dealing with a cheater and their lies. He mentions all the ways the cheater is caught red handed in the act and still claims “it wasn’t me,” haven’t we all been there? No matter how much evidence you have to the contrary FWs will always claim they didn’t do it! So I always interpreted as an anticheating song in the sense that it seems it makes fun of how fucking stupid cheaters are when they try to lie.
Oh! It happened! Having sex on girlfriend’s marital bed is in really poor taste. And when it’s done knowing the husband is already suspicious AND owns a security surveillance company – it’s simply moronic. Goofy said “what a mess”.
I was totally unaware until then that he had such a gift for understatement.
That’s a fair point. When I think of it like that it makes me think of Blazing Saddles. You could think it’s a racist movie but it actually paints the racists as idiots that end up being saved by a black man who they come to appreciate.
Great movie and man do I love and miss the wonderful late Gene Wilder!
Ex MIL’s favourite song 🤦♀️
Girl Crush
Benny Hill omg I can hear that trumpet theme music in my head. Wasn’t misogyny so HILARIOUS??!!
The whole dumb romance “heart wants what the heart wants” – mined frequently by songwriters/lyricists. Basic glorification of narcissistic gratification – soooo prevalent.
Does make you wonder about that particular sub-section of humans who are undeniably creative and talented, but emotionally infantile.
This classic – Saving all my love for you by Whitney Houston.
“A few stolen moments is all that we share
You’ve got your family and they need you there
Though I’ve tried to resist being last on your list
But no other man’s gonna do
So I’m saving all my love for you”
So much empathy! What sadness! Poor lady, she’s just in Twu Wuv! Her love is nothing like what his wife is feeling – that entrapping witch.
The love of the other woman is Real TM.
Like Winehouse’s side chick and cheating anthems, Houston’s untimely end doesn’t sell the mentality of “tolerance of cheating” very well. After her death, Bobby Brown admitted cheating rampantly and claimed (whether it’s true or not) that Houston cheated on him with producers to benefit her career. The latter might have been desperation to support the couple’s drug habits and I’ve always wondered if Houston’s addiction was caused by being repeatedly battered by Brown. She was a great talent but now whenever I hear her songs I think of her terrifying marriage and chaotic life and feel nauseated.
I do feel like he ruined her. She seemed so different. Just cheapened her value. She must not have been strong enough. She was my first favorite artist growing up I had her tape that I played over and over again.
How about Sugarland’s, “Stay”
I never realized the depth but I swear I always thought she was referring to her band mate who had a wife and kids at home.
I’ll never know
But I do believe her tears were REAL
As a child I loved singing this song into my hairbrush! It’s still great in the sense that it’s a pretty song with great vocals, but the lyrics suck! Oh man, were we always just conditioned to be mistresses or chumps? These fucking songs!
I sang my little heart out to Whitney while playing with Barbies (Barbie was getting some. No chump there!) Also “Secret Lovers”.
Yeah that one! The entitlement melody! We are supposed to feel the OWs heartbreak but she knows fully he has a wife and family ! Poaching bitch! and the Fk wit with balls for brains!
It’s not very easy living all alone
My friends try and tell me find a man of my own
But each time I try, I just break down and cry
‘Cause I’d rather be home feeling blue
So I’m saving all my love for you
You used to tell me we’d run away together
Love gives you the right to be free
You said be patient just wait a little longer
But that’s just an old fantasy
“Run to You “ by Bryan Adams makes me want to break stuff. Asshat sent it in a text to OW when they were “dating “.
I can’t stand Bryan Adams. Never thought he had real talent.
I was going to enter the same, and looked it up to find the correct quotable lyrics. To my surprise, there’s some debate about who the singer is cheating with, and per the video, Adams is running to his guitar, not another woman. I’d prefer to think this is the correct interpretation.
I hope so.
Please Help Me I’m Falling
and
Just Walk On By
Honestly when I was young I loved the music but never really focused on the words. Though my music is late sixties, I still love 50s music and listen all the time. When either of those come on I mute it.
Ass wipes chortling like they are helpless victims that just started falling in love, instead of spent time pumping strange until they got caught up in destruction.
My ex-cheater hated the song ationships for him, even if he was married with 4 little kids!!!Throw Your Arms Around Me by Hunters and Collectors (an Australian band) because it was about a one night stand. His integrity was solid!!! Only long term rel
I’m going to start again here. Don’t know what happened. My ex-cheater hated the son Throw your Arms Around Me by Hunters and Collectors (an Australian band) because it was about a one night stand. He had far too much integrity for that!!! Only long term relations were acceptable, even if you were already married with four young kids!!
“You keep telling me baby, there will come a time
When you will leave her arms and forever be in mine
But I don’t think that’s the truth
And I don’t like being used and I’m tired of waiting
It’s too much pain to have to bear to love a man you have to share
Why don’t you stay? I’m down on my knees
I’m so tired of being lonely, don’t I give you what you need?
When she calls you to go, there is one thing you should know
We don’t have to live this way. Why don’t you stay?”
This song literally made me want to rip my radio from the dashboard and throw it out the window multiple times after DD.
What a boring song. I’m not much of a country pop fan unless there’s something a little different or folksier going on (John Prine, Patty Griffin) but I looked the band up and apparently Nettles (singer/songwriter) met second husband Justin Miller while working on a video together in 2006– while she was still married to first husband. The first marriage blew up a year later. No info on whether Miller or her first husband had previous partners when the relationships with Nettles began but side chick anthems/prose are risky and go against the cultural grain so I tend to wonder if they’re a way of trying to put lipstick on the pig of personal experience. I could care less about celeb culture but find it fascinating how FWs (like pedophiles) compulsively try to hijack public approval for their bs.
They just wanted to make a song about how tough it is for the OW. They said no other songs told about how hard it is. Wtf! Absolutely detest this song!!
It’s not a song about cheating to my knowledge, but it will forever be linked with the affair between FW and the OW who was my best friend. She became obsessed with Take Me to Church by Hozier, whom I happen to love, when it came out, and upon listening to the lyrics I can only surmise she associated them with their misunderstood forbidden love. Poor tortured creature… I can’t even listen to that song anymore and had to block it on my music streaming services. Makes me sick.
Cakeless – I’m so sorry. My X had an affair with a good friend of mine (her husband was our friend as well, poor guy). I know this pain. I recall my X and ex-friend both separately playing lots of Kasey Musgraves during their two years of cheating. I got the sense KM may have been a part of their…background music. I can’t listen to any of her stuff anymore. Except “High Horse” 😉
After the cheating he played
“I’m only human, Rag n Bone”
Made my blood pressure go up
I like the song because Hozier was brave in matching it to a video about persecution and murder of gay couples in Russia. But if your ex happens to be homophobic or insecure in his macho mojo (which cheaters typically are), I’m not sure how flattered he’d be by Schmoop’s taste in affair anthems.
Today’s cartoon is perfect and has reminded me of something: A good friend of mine, who used to be a good friend of FW as well (they grew up together, and the guy even helped build our house) told me that once, he was in the car with FW when a country song about cheating came on; FW made some comments about how awful and wrong that was. Textbook virtue signaling. My friend thought it was a little weird at the time, but he couldn’t put a finger on why and forgot about it… until years later, when FW’s cheating spiraled out of control and everyone somehow knew about it.
FW also confided in that friend — again, a mutual, good friend — that I wanted kids but it was sad that I was too insecure and unstable to be a mother. That is BS, and the friend knew it and was bothered to hear FW slandering me behind my back. He recalled the conversation after dday when my ex became physically abusive and I truly had become (temporarily) insecure and unstable.
It’s all straight out of some internet list of “Narcissist Manipulation Tactics.”Cheaters are caricatures of themselves.
Before we were married, klootzak liked to tell me a story about how he was out drinking with his best friend. Best friend was engaged ti be married but a busty blonde was throwing herself at him while they were out and klootzak – pillar of virtue! – stopped his friend from making a terrible mistake and going off and cheating on his fiancée. Major virtue signaling. I had forgotten about that. What a fool I was.
Ugh, what a fucking POS! I hope someone throws him out of a moving vehicle!
I never thought of the term “Virtue Signaling” fitting the cheater repertoire, but yea. Major Cheaterpants used to tell me about things he saw his coworkers do inferring he was far above such things. I wonder now if he was taking my temperature on what I saw as wrong or right.
I remember once after we had sex, he said “I wouldn’t even know how to have sex with anyone but you”…he would sprinkle shit like this in and I believed him. (facepalm)
There are quite a few cheating songs that I immediately turn the station. I used to like the song Sad Eyes until I realized that the idiot was shacking up with a women while his wife was away. Dolly’s song Joleen annoys me. I wish there were more songs kicking the cheater to the curb.
I hate “Sad Eyes.” I absolutely HATE it. I don’t know why I hate it above all other cheater songs. Maybe because it’s such an unvarnished, unapologetic manipulator anthem.
And I agree about Jolene. I’ll be damned if I’m going to beg an OW to stay away from my husband. Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough” is better.
I wish Jolene would come take klootzak and rid me of him. That’s all I can think when I hear it. Dolly had it backwards.
Chapel Hart did a 2021 update to Jolene.
You Can Have Him Jolene
Well, since the last song, I’ve had time to think it over
A lot of tears, a lot of beer, a lot of wine
I spent so much time believin’ that that midnight phone stopped ringin’
But he’d leave the room and answer every time
Well, it didn’t seem so easy with that broken glass in pieces
And you holdin’ me and sayin’ you were wrong
Well, I’m tired of second chances, and these sad ass circumstances
He’s your problem, good luck keepin’ him home
Oh Jolene, you can have him ’cause he don’t mean much to me
Well, I cried so much ’til rivers turned to seas
Oh Jolene, when you think that he’s in love, he’ll surely leave
Like he did me
You can have him, Jolene
Well, I fixed my crown from leanin’
And those weddin’ bells stopped ringin’
I took my keys and threw him out his door
Well, I found a man who loves me and he’ll give me all I need
What woman could ask for anymore
Oh Jolene, you can have him ’cause he don’t mean much to me
Well, I cried so much ’til rivers turned to seas
Oh Jolene, when you think that he’s in love, he’ll surely leave
Like he did me
You can have him, Jolene
Oh Jolene, you can have him ’cause he don’t mean much to me
Well, I cried so much ’til rivers turned to seas
Oh Jolene, when you think that he’s in love, he’ll surely leave
Like he did me
You can have him, Jolene
You can have him, Jolene
You can have him, Jolene
Thanks, ghost! I always thought that about ‘Jolene’ – OW could have had her pick but chose a married man/power trip. Then she didn’t want to keep her prize so he came back to bother me! The whole Chapel Hart video was a great laugh. No tagbacks, Jolene! He’s your problem now.
I have a playlist for you:
Beyoncé’s: Irreplaceable
Gloria Gaynor: I will Survive. ( That’s the Chump’s anthem)
Toni Braxton’s trio of go fuck yourself songs: Just be a Man about it, He Wasn’t Man Enough for Me and Let it flow.
Mary J Blige: No More Drama
Lauren Hill: Ex Factor
Alicia Key’s: Brand New Kinda Me
Anita Baker: No Fairytales.
All those songs I played over and over again. They got me through the worst of it.
The song “Sad Eyes” by Robert John makes me want to wretch. It’s the cheater song that pisses me off the most.
Also “Second Chance” by .38 Special.
I much prefer the LEAVING a cheater songs. I’m sure I will eventually get past this newbie stage, but I needed this music to strengthen my resolve to take action. I wore out my copy of The Chicks Gaslighter album this summer driving around in my car. I went to their concert too — by myself cause my friends couldn’t make it. (Read: I can live a full life alone, if necessary). I have also been known to blast Billie Eilish Happier than Ever so loud, that my teenager complains she can hear it when I pull into the garage. I just got Beys older Lemonade. I haven’t seen the visual album yet. (Irrelevant side note: Black is King changed me.).
I don’t know how I feel yet about Bey staying with JayZ but at least she made millions from her pain.
Funny, ex played a more modern shaggy video this summer. Must have been on his mind.
The Lemonade album healed me, even though it’s got reconciliation in it. I could connect to her pain.
Agreed! I love Taylor Swift’s ‘Mad Woman’ so much. Also Rod Stewart’s Reason to believe. Both of these songs capture what it feels like to be gaslit and betrayed.
“Be Alright” by Dean Lewis really helped in the beginning. Friends help him realize he’s worth it and should move on.
“Bury Me” by 30 Seconds to Mars.
Made an album on family Apple account called Punched and filled it with these and other F-You songs. Found cheating playlists on Spotify too.
I can’t think of any songs in particular but I refuse to listen to any song that a cheater sings. Lots and lots of artists I refuse to listen to now days. If I support them it’s like saying it’s ok they cheat and if it’s ok for them it would be ok for my ex.
When I finally realized he was cheating and was looking for proof, I dropped by our business unannounced. He wasn’t there. As I drove away, that grating 70’s hit Afternoon Delight popped into my head. I was thinking, “He could be anywhere. This is like looking for a needle in a haystack.” To my surprise, and his, the needles have a habit of looking for me.
I doubt most people would listen to a song or watch a movie that realistically portrayed cheating. And I suspect all the sugarcoating of the subject in print, song, and film is a way of maintaining denial.
Conversely, I notice I REALLY appreciate it when the entertainment industry gets cheating right.
Emma Thompson in Love Actually (who was not really acting because she was cheated on in real life) Maya Rudolph in Loot, and James Corden in Mammals really nailed it.
There are too many dumbass songs minimizing cheating, deleted from my life soundtrack, to list here.
Working Moms really nails it too. I cried watching it because she just plays the devastation so well when she finds out. It’s pretty realistic in general.
I’d love to hear more about movies and shows that get it right! I’ve written down your recommendations, VH. I’m rewatching Ugly Betty with my daughter right now and I’m finding it SO offensive. I’m amazed I didn’t notice before. It is loaded with misogyny and presented as something else all together.
Although it’s billed as a comedy, in The Other Woman Leslie Mann’s character delivers a number of real-life reactions. I think the OW’s in the movie are unwittingly OW’s? When they all find out about each other, they band together to get revenge.
I felt like Under the Tuscan Sun and The Rebound were both good in showing the impact of cheating on the chump, and I watched both repeatedly after dday and felt sure that someone involved in the making of those movies got it and had been through it.
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Deeply effed up on several levels: Cheating, voyeurism, involving the kids in the conspiracy, arguably desecration of a holy day, etc.
“Oh what a laugh it would have been/
If Daddy had only seen/
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night.”
Laugh? Yeah, cheating is hilarious.
And I get that maybe Santa is Daddy in a Santa costume, but the point of the song is that the IDEA of Mommy cheating on Daddy is funny.
Just: Ick. And all the nopes.
Hands down — Escape (The Pina Colada Song)
Man decides he’s bored with partner (“gotten into the same old dull routine”);
Puts a cheesy ad in the paper;
“Waits with high hopes” at a bar;
Fuckbuddy shows up and turns out to be his partner
“Then they laugh for moment . . .” Oh my isn’t this hilarious?! We’re BOTH cheaters!! Let’s go fuck now!! . . .
It’s a bizarre, weird song. I immediately disliked it when I heard it during my childhood. Disgusting!!
Love that you posted this one. My daughter loves this song but recently understood the narrative and she asked me about it: “isn’t this about cheaters?” I said yes, and her comment was, “why is he so happy about it?” Good question my dear.
My (cheating) girlfriend in high school loved the song “Torn Between Two Lovers “….I was too stupid to stop and say “hmmmm “
My mother loved that song but was a totally devoted wife to the day my father died. Her father was a cheater and she was very anti-cheater. I sometimes think people like the melody and think that’s a great song and don’t really listen to the lyrics. Not always but sometimes. People who have never been cheated on personally don’t find such songs triggering, so don’t beat yourself up for not having a clue about that cheater. Someone liking a cheater song is not evidence, really.
Haha, don’t you hate when you look back and remember that shit that should’ve made you think twice? Of course, if you would’ve brought it up at that point you would’ve looked like a lunatic, but in hindsight it should’ve definitely made you think.
UX,
This was the most obvious song to me. So obvious that I read the comments first because I knew someone would post it.
It is a song about two Fuckwits. They rejoice and accept the Fickwittyness. Fuck them
Right there with you, UX. Only thing good about that song is that the two potential cheaters re-find each other and keep cheaters out of the dating pool.
that’s only if the cheaters don’t continue to cheat
Yeah that song always left me feeling weird. Like…uh you both were trying to cheat on each other…that’s not a happy ending that’s a reason to end the marriage.
Lyin ’ Eyes ( The Eagles) – “ he knows where she’s going when she’s leaving, she’s heading to the cheating side of town”
A song that also sets me off is I Have Nothing by Whitney. It’s not a cheating song, but I saw texts my ex FW sent to one of his mistresses telling her just like the song says, I have nothing if I don’t have you. ( don’t mind that wife and three kids you see in the car, they are a whole lot of nothing to him I guess). Hurts for years to hear that song, as beautiful as it is.
Girl I know you’re doing the same thing too
But I won’t tell your man the things we do,
oh no Cause he don’t have to know….
John Legend
I hate that song because I hear that phrase in real life from creeps who can’t take “No, I have a boyfriend” for an answer. Some guys will ask for my number, and I’ll tell them no, I have a boyfriend and they apologize and go on their way.
Then…then there are assholes. “Well he doesn’t have to know.” Or “Well he don’t gotta know.” Or “So what? You don’t gotta tell him.”
Just…christ…fuck off…
Kara I know; its the deceit and the suggestion that what the betrayed person doesn’t know she/he wont worry about. There’s just no respect from these people. As long as they get sex they don’t care.
Torn Between Two Lovers- Mary MacGregor. I despise that one, it’s scratching on blackboard level of cringe.
Oh yes — that’s a tough bit of sad sausaging set to music
My gag-reflex trigger has been those two cheating spouses who found “twooo wuv” while being judges on that singing show on TV. Now they are the shining example of what love is all about and the silly world watches and feels warm all over. We should all be so lucky to find our one and only! He showed up recently as the cover model on one of my favorite catalogs and I threw it straight into the recycle. What garbage.
From what I understand all of them are FWs except maybe Gwen? She’s a schmoopie, but pretty sure her marriage was already over (they were legally separated?) by the time she met Blake because her husband cheated on her with the nanny. Blake has always been a notorious cheater, and Miranda is supposedly both a FW and a schmoopie. Yikes, a big mess, all of them.
I LOVE Miranda’s “this aint your mamas broken heart”
“I honestly love you” by Olivia Newton-John
Just ew.
Also . . . “How Can I Tell Her” by Lobo (1973)
Cheating coward extols myriad of virtues of his partner to his OW, then pleads with her to help him tell partner
“How can I tell her I don’t miss her
Whenever I am away?
How can I say it’s you I think of
Every single night and day?
But when is it easy telling someone the truth
Oh girl, help me tell her about you
How can I tell her about you?
Girl, please tell me what to do
Everything seems right whenever I’m with you
So girl, won’t you tell me
How to tell her about you”
This doesn’t have cheating in it, but radio stations played it over & over it seemed after D-day & it even came on my station when I drove by OW’s house & saw my now X husband’s car in the driveway. So it’s forever associated with their cheating as I imagined they were listening to it too while getting it on. “I love it when you call me señorita, I wish I could pretend I didn’t need ya, But every touch is ooh, la-la-la It’s true, la-la-la, Ooh, I should be running, Ooh, you keep me coming for ya. Sorry, Camila Cabello but I just can’t!
Wow, I have the same thing. Initially like the song, then had DDay while it was still popular. Honestly it makes me want to puke.
UPDATE: Just looked up the song & it looks like it’s about cheaters! Old friends meeting in a hotel. Also, Camila was with someone else at the time, but ended up with Shawn Mendes who is the male singer in it. So yeah, it’s about cheaters after all!!! I guess my gut instinct knew better than my brain.
I hate this with a passion, by Rolling Stones and others, it makes me so angry!
Under my thumb
It’s a squirmin’ dog who’s just had her day
Under my thumb
A girl who has just changed her ways
It’s down to me
Yes it is
The way she does just what she’s told down to me
The change has come
She’s under my thumb
Ah, ah, say it’s alright
Under my thumb
Her eyes are just kept to herself
Under my thumb, well I
I can still look at someone else
It’s down to me, oh, that’s what I said
The way she talks when she’s spoken to
Down to me, the change has come
She’s under my thumb
Say, it’s alright
I actually love Sam Smith’s Not The Only One.
You say I’m crazy
‘Cause you don’t think I know what you’ve done
But when you call me baby
I know I’m not the only one…
In the video while the husband is out cheating the wife takes a bunch of his stuff and throws it in their pool and sets their wedding pictures on fire while smoking a cigarette. And when cheating husband comes home she hugs him, but grins because he’s about to find his crap is at the bottom of the swimming pool.
This song came out a few years too late for me to have heard it in the moment, but yea
Chicago’s -No Tell Lover.
Funny how they randomly pop into consciousness and dig into unspoken societal belief systems of the wink wink, it’s kind of cool to cheat and everybody does it.
The “it’s wrong but it feels so right” entitled lot of ppl anyway. The cool crowd get to cheat, everyone else gets to follow the rules and pick up after them.
I would love to see the day it’s not so readily accepted and the mentality of, oh, it’s just cheating, there are way worse sins in the world than that to concern ourselves with, is not the go to response.
Cheating hits the fabric of everything and the only ppl that truly know that are the cheated upon and they are seen as bitter and angry and not fully worth the time listening to.
Our incredible Chump Lady is a powerful whisp of hope that even such pervasive narratives have the potential to be dismantled.
I can’t handle the Hoover songs. Heard one the other day on the radio that made my jaw drop. It’s thinly veiled abuse, and people find it romantic and sweet? There could be an entire blog devoted to UBTing love songs. Make it part of high school health curriculum. Add the Sad Sausage antidote, as well — “Dead,” by Madison Beer: “You say you can’t live without me… then why aren’t you dead yet? Why you still breathing?”
For me it’s kind of the inverse – the songs that are the hardest to listen to are the ones that exemplify the love I thought I had before I realized it was a three-decades-long lie. Like Alan Jackson’s “Remember When” which is about acknowledging the hard times and celebrating making it through them.
“Remember when thirty seemed so old
Now lookin’ back, it’s just a steppin’ stone
To where we are, where we’ve been
Said we’d do it all again
Remember when
Remember when we said when we turned gray
When the children grow up and move away
We won’t be sad, we’ll be glad
For all the life we’ve had
And we’ll remember when”
Loved that song but no matter how deeply meh I feel, I still can’t listen to it because it reminds me of everything I thought was important that didn’t matter to ex at all.
I love old Billy Joel. Was listening to his greatest hits album and started crying at ‘Just the Way You Are.’ I thought we had that kind of love but it turns out only I did. He didn’t love me anymore and said it was because he no longer found me attractive or wanted intimacy with me.
Look at Us – Vince Gill (sames!)
I feel that way about “you were always in my mind” by willie Nelson. It’s one of those for me
Those are the ones that used to hit me smack in the feels, too, the ones about how awesome it is to grow old parenting together. That’s what I thought I had, dammit, and he exploded it. I had to get up and leave in the middle of a dinner party (that I was hosting) once when one came on in the background radio. I don’t even know what song it was now. Just goes to show how cheating can taint everything.
I refocused by having a playlist of empowering vengeance songs.
“Why don’t you stay?” By Antebellum. They wanted to do a song from the OW perspective. I LOSE it whenever it comes on radio. Wtf!
It’s Sugarland, but I get you. It’s a hard one to listen to for sure. I sing and I have had people request this one of me. I decline. I can’t, way to close to the heart.
“I hope you’re happy now” by Carly Pearce and Lee Brice. It the typical cheater justification song. 🤢🤮
From the wayback machine- this crap has been around forever. I despise Cole Porter’s “Always True to You In My Fashion.” Which is basically gaslighting that rhymes- she’s faithful, just, you know, “in her way.”
If a custom tailored vet
Asks me out for something wet
When the vet begins to pet–I cry hooray.
But I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion
Yes, I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my way.
I’ve been asked to have a meal
By a big tycoon in steel,
If the meal includes a deal, accept I may.
But I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion
Yes, I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my way.
And honorable mention for “Just One of Those Things,” which isn’t necessarily about cheating, but is pretty much just “Get lost chump. Didn’t mean anything.”
Cole Porter was a magnificent songwriter. Except for this.
“Fooled around and Fell in Love” ew
This is probs unique to me, but David Bowies “China Girl” was not good for me when Cheater and his full-blood-spoke- Mandarin coworker were at it
The Mother of all Spackler Wreckonsillyation songs has to be Take That’s 1994 hit “Back for Good”
https://youtu.be/eBIzCF-8xSg
… Whatever I said, whatever I did I didn’t mean it I just want you back for good
Whenever I’m wrong just tell me the song and I’ll sing it
You’ll be right and understood I want you back for good
… Unaware but underlined I figured out this story it wasn’t good
But in the corner of my mind I celebrated glory
But that was not to be in the twist of separation
You excelled at being free can’t you find a little room inside for me
… And we’ll be together, this time is forever
We’ll be fighting and forever we will be so complete in our love
We will never be uncovered again
I will invite you into my fuckedupness and let you know that I have a clear memory of humming this song as I painted my living room in our new house that Cheater bought when he “came home” (blech, gag). When we moved in, we had 2 houses and 4 mortgages which totaled about $800,000 (in 2007 when that seemed the thing to do) which seemed a trifle to him. I had to prep and sell the old house (his interest had moved on by then) lest we collapse financially. I spackled, painted and kept the plates spinning while he returned with no conditions or accountability.
I sang this at the ex MIL’s 80th birthday party. Effectively to a room of people most of whom knew he was leaving me (though not that he was going back to exgfOW). He left 4 months later. I was so humiliated. I sang it because I like the song. I had no idea what he was up to, although I wonder now whether I did.
Back to Black- Amy Winehouse:
He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me and my head high
And my tears dry
Get on without my guy
I took it as a side chick anthem (chump is the “old safe bet”). It’s sort of a companion piece to her cheater anthem. She didn’t end so well so her lyrics become an inadvertent cautionary tale.
Just a few of the MANY cheating glamorization songs…(some containing lyrics which I used to consider “funny” such as Shaggy’s aforementioned “It Wasn’t Me”):
Eagles – “Lyin’ Eyes
Atlantic Starr – “Secret Lovers”
C+C Music Factory – “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…”
Naughty By Nature – “O.P.P.”
Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow – “Picture”
I’ve got to say, I don’t consider the Eagle’s Lyin’ Eyes a cheater song. I consider it a cheater-exposing song. It details how shitty the female cheater acts, and how no matter how rich or fancy she gets, she can’t change her cheater self it seems, or hide her Lyin’ Eyes.
Kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans. I use to love that damn song. Now every time I hear it, I want to grab my purse and run like my hair is on fire.,
I very clearly remember O.P.P.’s music video where the dude has to wake-up his side piece by pushing her head into the pillow and thinking how not hot but probably realistic that was.
Nearly forgot Usher’s “You Make Me Wanna” and “Confessions, PT. II”
How about Contagious by The Isley Brothers featuring R. Kelly. Which leads me to R.Kelly’s long ass Trapped in the Closet.
Not a song, but the Meryl Streep/Alex Baldwin/Steve Martin film ‘It’s Complicated’ came on last night and I was like screaming at the tv. Not only was Baldwin cheating on his wife (with his ex-wife who he previously cheated on) *with whom he has a young child and is trying to get pregnant*, but he is showing all the signs of accelerating his narcissistic abuse — showing up unexpectedly and demanding Streep’s attention, ignoring Streep’s ‘no’s, running roughshod over her boundaries, treating all his children as non-persons without feelings, talking about his own pain and confusion even as he cheats and lies — AUGH! Streep is entirely complicit as the AP, so ‘It’s Complicated’, but this ain’t no lighthearted rom-com anymore.
Gag, glad I never watched that.
I’ve Found Someone of my Own
I got up this morning
While I was having my coffee
My woman came in, sat down by my side
With tears in her eyes
She said I’ve a confession to make
I said, “Woman, speak what’s on your mind”
She said, “I’ve found somebody new
To take your place”
I said, “Don’t feel so all alone
I’ve found someone of my own”
All those lonely nights
You left me all alone
My new love would call
And comfort me on the phone
I said, “Woman, if that’s the way it’s gotta be
Then darlin, don’t you worry about me”
She said, “I’ve found somebody new
To take your place”
I said, “Don’t feel so all alone
I’ve found someone of my own”
I got up from the table
Reached down and wiped the tears
From her face
I put out my cigarette
Turned and walked away
She said, “I’ve found somebody new
To take your place”
I said, “Don’t feel so all alone
I’ve found someone of my own”
You’re drunk you’re drunk you silly old fool by the Dubliners
Ever listened to Sinatra’s Doncha Go Away Mad? Lyrics below. Everything old is new again. CL, you’ll “love” the vintage vibe with the old blame the chump. TG many years ago was a final D day for me. He maxed out a credit card to take another woman away for the holiday while telling me he was visiting his Mom. I figured it out easily. In fact, I called their hotel room then got a copy of the room bill. More heavy breathing, anyone? LOL!!! He defaulted on the card too. Charm galore!
“Don’Cha Go ‘Way Mad”
I must confess what you say is true
I had a rendezvous with somebody new
That’s the only one I ever had
Baby, baby, don’cha go away mad
Cheatin’ shows and it never goes
You got a reason to be mad I suppose
But she only was a passin’ fad
Ba-by, don’t you be mad
Her kind’s a dime a dozen
And that’s not the kind I want
Who’d ever dream your cousin
Would wander into that restaurant?
I understand that you feel upset
Whaddya you say that you forgive and forget?
Come on and kiss me just to show you’re glad
Baby, baby don’cha go away mad
[instrumental]
Now, her kind’s a dime a dozen
I should’ve passed her by
Who’d ever dream your cousin
Would come along and give us the eye?
I understand that feel upset
Whaddya you say that you forgive and forget?
Come on and kiss me just to show you’re glad
Baby, don’cha go away mad
Understand that you’re quite upset
Whaddya you say that you forgive and forget?
Come on and kiss me just to show you’re glad
Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, don’cha go
‘way mad
Now, don’cha go away mad
Fits with stories about Sinatra terrorizing, cheating on and battering Mia Farrow.
Mia really knew how to pick ‘em, didn’t she ? A massively effed up f.o.o. Including her brother who did prison time for child molestation. 🤮🤮
Farrow reminds me of an old Norse proverb about rape,
The fjord has no bottom
The river has no end
The mountain has no summit
A pretty girl has no kinsmen
She also reminds me of the character of Remedios the Beauty from One Hundred Years of Solitude because she was probably one of the most beautiful women who ever lived– at least according to white, Western standards– but seemed poorly equipped to deal with it. Plus she was born into showbiz which is basically like being born into the den of horrors. As bad as things are now for women in media, it was 100 times worse back then. Harassment wasn’t even a concept. From her philanthropic work, bleeding heart politics and retiring lifestyle, I’m guessing she never had the narcissism or meanness required to adapt and protect herself– one of those people who’d be perfectly suited to live in a perfect world free of predators and cruelty but not well suited to this one. It seems like she kept seeking shelter with “protectors”– men with enough status and edge to keep the scary monsters at bay– but then who’s going to protect you from your “body guards”?
All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You by Heart – she picks up a hitch hiker that only HE could fulfill what her significant other couldn’t. Then the kicker, she has a child from the one night stand but her SO doesn’t know it’s not his.
Babe by Sugarland and Taylor Swift – the video is depressing watching the wife find out her husband is a Cheater.
I always hated that particular song, which was weird because I otherwise loved Heart’s music in general. I never learned that song’s lyrics, but there was something about the sound of it felt chiched & grating.
But after hearing about these lyrics, I’m less fond of Heart. I guess a cheater song isn’t surprising; given how how much of their music is about brief, magical, unsustainable passions.
I always interpreted the Heart song differently – I told myself that the SO was infertile and knew about her tryst/was OK with it because they wanted children. (I guess it was wishful thinking – trying to put the best face on the situation even though, in hindsight, that was a strange/unsafe way to solve the problem.)
The thunder rolls by Garth Brooks. My XH used to play it all the time. Looking back I think he probably plays cheater songs every time he was having an affair. And he played them alot. Lol. When he moved out of the house to “go find himself “ I found an entire CD hidden in the garage of cheating songs! Lol. I love Garth Brooks but I can’t listen to that song anymore. I hate all cheating music and movies that glorify cheating
And I will have to add that The Thunder Rolls live version ends with the wife getting the pistol out of the drawer and shooting the cheater husband 😊
How about:
Papa loved mama, mama loved men…
Mama’s in the graveyard, Papa’s in the pen.
No sane parents for the kids I guess?
😁
“Torn Between Two Lovers” by Mary MacGregor
Every time ”So Good” by Halsey comes on…Alexa! Skip!!!
“When you left, I bet you held her body closer
And I was hopin’ you would tell her it was over
You’re all I think about and everywhere I look
I know it’s bad, but we could be so good”
Girl, get some self-respect.