Cheating Dentist Poisons Wife
Cheating dentist poisons wife… Reconciliation Industrial Complex to blame?
If I was playing a game of Clue, that’s what I’d guess. Not Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick, but too many goddamn save-your-marriage-to-a-sociopath therapy narratives.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Many alert chumps sent me the article about Colorado dentist James Craig killing his wife Angela Craig with arsenic protein shakes so he could be with his Schmoopie. (Allegedly.)
According to the Associated Press:
Police believe a Colorado dentist laced his wife’s pre-workout protein shakes with arsenic and cyanide, eventually killing his spouse so he could be with a woman he was having an affair with, according to court documents.
James Craig, 45, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder Sunday, shortly after his wife died after being taken off life support during her third trip to the hospital this month.
Third trip. In between he was Googling how much cyanide to put in breakfast smoothies.
And Angela, poor Angela? She was trying to save her marriage. You wonder what she was Googling.
The tabloid Daily Mail reports:
A devoted wife stayed loyal to her porn-addicted Mormon dentist husband for years putting up with affairs, drug abuse and gambling problems as he ‘slowly poisoned her to death’, it is alleged.
Angela Craig, 43, was determined to work on her marriage to dentist James Craig despite his multiple infidelities and other issues in their relationship.
She raised her concerns with her sister over their 16-year relationship – saying several times that she would leave her husband – but he always managed to talk her round.
I wonder who else managed to talk her round over 16 years. I got chumped 16 years ago. All the resources were “My Husband’s Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.” Now in its 15th anniversary edition! Best seller! On Oprah! Or the online forums peddling hopium and support for “waywards.” Or the quack therapists. Or the Jesus Thinks You’re a Failure If You Divorce freaks. Or the Stand for Your Marriage freaks. And of course, Esther Perel has done a lot in 16 years.
Is this fair, Tracy? Laying one psychopath’s murder victim at the feet of the RIC?
I’m just saying there are a lot of messages out there telling women like Angela Craig to stay with their cheating husbands. In fact, it’s STILL the dominant narrative. And very few places link domestic abuse to cheating, as part of a spectrum of escalating abusive behavior. Oh, he had multiple affairs? He was stealing from his business? Holy Cluster B Batman. What are the odds that a misogynist into escapism would like to find an easy out that makes his wife — and the child support on six children — disappear?
The heart wants what the heart wants, Tracy!
Apparently the heart wanted an orthodontist Schmoopie from Texas. Meanwhile, James was telling his wife how much he loved her while he was killing her (allegedly!).
The dentist sent his wife several loving messages, including telling her that he had written her a song, despite police saying he knew she was slowly being poisoned with potassium cyanide.
He was arrested in Aurora, Colorado, on Sunday, accused of killing his wife by poisoning her protein shakes, all the while conducting an affair with an orthodontist in Texas.
Messages revealed by police in an arrest affidavit show seemingly loving messages between the couple as social media photographs all show Angela showering her husband in kisses for loved-up snaps on their shared Facebook page.
While his wife deteriorated in hospital and was dealing with mystified doctors, Craig also flew his mistress over from Texas while simultaneously messaging his wife to say he ‘wished he could stay longer’ at the hospital with her.
Raise your hand if your cheater sent you a message how they missed you, when they were with Schmoopie. WHY AREN’T WE MORE CREEPED OUT BY DOUBLE LIVES?
Tracy, this was just an exuberant act of defiance!
Yes, and where are those unicorn pushers now? Don’t they want credit for this marriage? They stayed together until death.
Her death.
My ex started this smear campaign with my kids as he was cheating telling them I was poisoning him and my kids. Of course I wasn’t but it got me to leave him very suddenly. Because this is what he was going to do to me. I got friends to help with a hotel for 2 days and my entrapaneur boss put the money up for my apt. I got my apt that day and moved to a hotel for 2 days. I was so scared I was shaking. Now I am three years free. This one hits so close to my heart.
Yes my husband, shortly after turning into an unrecognizable person consumed with anger towards me, accused me of putting poison in his food. I was shocked and afraid, because I understood it was projection. He also called the police when I went to the AirBNB he was staying at to try to see him, which I took as a form of projection about his wish to harm me to the point I would need to call the police. He accuses me of all kinds of crazy things, but the accusations of violence make me concerned for my safety.
He works in television and during the same period he elected to produce a newsmagazine story about a husband who violently murdered his wife and got away with it. I didn’t know until it aired. I took that to be an exercise in wish fulfillment as well. At the same time he has everyone around him convinced he’s a great guy.
Same here. I had such creepy things happen too. Lucky to be alive I guess
That’s so chilling. Because you know they are doing whatever they accuse you of doing. I’m glad you got out quickly.
I can’t even hit a thumbs-up button on that … sheesh. Super-scary. It does happen. Glad you dodged the cyanide shake, stay well and free and safe {{{{hugs}}}}}
How much you want to believe this mistress thinks “I am that special. He would kill for me.”
Now I am curious if he is able to kill his wife to be with schmoopie – if/when the next schmoopie comes along, if current schmoopie will be counting her days knowing what this person is capable of 🤔
I want to know this about my brother’s second wife, who I’m sure she was an AP many years ago. What he did to her was way worse than how he left wife 1. Who he told me that wife 3 doesn’t know about and he doesn’t want her to know. Glad I don’t live near them or I’d want to tell. Someday the pictures will come out and she’ll see my kids with wife 1 and him. Anyhow, I’ve never had the guts to ask wife 2 any of these questions but I’d like to know.
She better watch it, she’ll be next once he tires of her
Is it wrong that I smiled when I saw her unredacted name in the arrest affidavit?
Gee orthodontist, in specific city with a uniquely spelled name?
Too bad, so sad. She gets to live with being, at least, somewhat outed as the affair partner. And will most likely get dragged into the aftermath of this tragedy. (Trial, Netflix)
Consequences. 👏🏻
Do you think it’s an accident that “Karin” from Austin wasn’t redacted in a few places or a reflection of how cops and clerks felt towards her behavior? According to the affidavit, Karin kared so much about Angela’s hospitalization that she accepted two round trip plane tickets from James Craig to fly in (and presumably to bonk him), all paid for on the family dime. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23718101-23cr664-craig-james-toliver_redacted
The way the AP rushes into the gap the second the wife becomes ill seems pretty ghoulish. Gushing with treacly concern over Craig’s hardship feels like it’s taken right out of a sidepiece operating manual.
“The other emails were with —— ‘emails were intimate in nature and contained sexually explicit conversations, There were so —– within those emails to —– travel dates were March 8-10, 2023, which showed —- from Austin, Texas to Denver, Colorado. Angela was in the hospital during March 9-14, 2023. The email account appeared to have been created on February 27, 2023, along with the searches, plans to poison someone, and to convene with Karin.
It appeared that James had _____ visit him while his wife was int he hospital sick. ‘The second flight itinerary was for March 16-20, 2023. This flight was purchased on March 4, 2023, which was the same date that the arsenic was delivered to James’ house. A follow-up email from Karin on March 16, 2023, suggested that James had told her something had happened to Angela. [She sent] James an email explaining how sorry she was for him and that she wished she was helping him, not pulling him away. She stated she knew it had to be so hard what he was going through and that she wanted to be there for him but id not want to mix in with his family and friends and pretend to be only a friend when there was something more.”
Science might make the same wager– that her first thought would be “Me super special!”: https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/6969/Parker_okstate_0664D_10801.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y
Her second thought would probably be similar to side piece Nichol Kessinger’s after Chris Watts murdered his family. Kessinger googled “Did people hate Amber Frey?” in reference to Scott Peterson’s unwitting mistress. Except Kessinger wasn’t unwitting so people did hate her, as they hate Michelle Troconis, wife-killer Fotis Dulos’s witting “mistress” (the word still used in headlines because “affair participant” is clunky) who’s currently wearing an ankle monitor as she awaits trial for conspiracy and evidence tampering.
I’m curious if Michelle Troconis, Tara Lintz and Nichole Kessinger would have stayed with their affair partners had these murderers evaded prosecution for their crimes. None of them expressed any genuine compassion for the victims, just unhappiness about their experiencing backlash for their conduct.
Michelle Troconis stuck around for about five months after Jennifer Dulos’s disappearance– long enough to make it clear that the charges against Fotis Dulos didn’t bother her that much. In the immediate wake of his ex wife’s disappearance, Troconis was helping Fotis fabricate alibis. She might have stuck around longer but it seems Dulos had taken up with someone named Anna Curry whom he’d known (in whatever sense) for his entire marriage. Curry paid his bail and then hid from the press and public following Fotis Dulos’s suicide. It seems the public reaction to her involvement with a wife killer wasn’t good. She recently came out of hiding to get the $150K back following his suicide which isn’t going to improve her public standing either.
I believe attorney Gloria Allred represented Amber Frey pro bono because of the media tsunami headed Amber’s way. Amber wasn’t the brightest bulb by introducing her little child to a man she just met. But she didn’t know the liar/cheater/murderer was married and she helped the police by recording her calls with Scott Peterson.
Someone who would be at all close to someone like that is SICK. Really SICK.
I give it 50/50 on whether she felt special, or whether he was telling the mistress that the wife was crazy, suicidal, he’d saved her life when she overdosed before, etc. etc., painting himself as the heroic, long-suffering husband who tragically missed saving his wife one final time.
100%!!! Ok it’s not MURDER, but my ex and Intern AP both blew up their marriages very dramatically in the same weekend because they enjoyed hurting the spouses. Like the more pain you cause the more you’re meant for each other?
I was tricked by ex into sending the kids off to the grandparents so we could talk about how we were financially ready to buy a nicer home. I was utterly clueless and so happy to be taking this exciting next step! I can still see the expression on his face when he told me it was a ruse. He was high. He got a high from making everything as painful for me as possible and I believe they both enjoyed that the other would inflict maximum pain on their spouse to be together.
Their drug of choice–duper’s delight. It’s sick. The divorce antics were beyond horrible for me, which surprised me because I just wanted him to ride off into the sunset. What’s astonishing is the OW is a willing accomplice–like they can’t figue out it could (& might just very well be) happen to them.
Sorry. How horrible for you.
I too was tricked into sending the kids to the grandparents’ homes out of state. At the time, I thought oh how nice that his parents want to spend time with the kids during summer vacation. The awful part was after d-day then having to ride in a car for 3 hours each way to get our kids. No way was I going to trust him anymore- he probably would have lied saying I abandoned the kids with his family.
Maisy, I think you nailed it. Yours seemed to be more obvious. How many have exploded their families, on Mother’s Day, Christmas, birthday, wedding anniversary. The more it hurts someone, the deeper the shoompie love! Trust that they suck
Mother’s day was Dday for me.
In Feb, cheater gave me a BMW as gift for my birthday. . I didn’t need or want a BMW.
I loved my Honda Odyssey mini van with low mileage.
Despite me saying I didn’t want a new car. Cheater bought the BMW, claimed he’d be insulted if I didn’t accept his gift.
Cheater told the judge I pressured him to buy the BMW. He had no other choice, he was tired of hearing me whine and complain about the van and asking for a BMW.
He denied that the car was a birthday gift,
The judge asked if anyone knew the car was a bought as a gift.
No problem, our neighbors were outside when I drove the BMW into the neighborhood on my birthday. Cheater made a big deal of telling everyone the car he bought the car was my birthday gift. . Neighbors all looked at the car, sat in it, fiddled with the radio. told me how lucky I was, asked if I’d take them for a drives which I did.
All I needed was one person to say they knew the car was a birthday gift from cheater.
No one could recall if the car was a gift or knew it was my birthday. .
Two neighbors have children with the same birthday as me. They celebrated their birthdays with me over the years. They knew I had a new car, didn’t know it was my birthday. I thought I could count on the detective, no, he didn’t remember hearing anyone say it was a gift.
Evidently Cheater talked to them prior.
The judge ruled in favor of Cheater..
He paid cash for the car, I had to give him $60,000.00. for a car I didn’t want.
I was a stay at home Mom without an income. He’s an airline pilot.
How is that justified?
It didn’t help that the judge is our age, female and was enamored with cheater.
I read something recently that sometimes female judges are so intent on avoiding anything that looks biased that they charge against a woman something ridiculous – like your situation.
That is diabolical.
Brit
Manchild is also an airline pilot
I am so sorry you also lived that life- I swear that old joke is true “what’s the difference between God and an airline pilot? God knows he’s not a pilot”. They really are that full of themselves.
This hits hard – I finally discovered my ex’s affair when he took her on an out of town trip on Mother’s Day weekend.
I posted another comment today about my ex-FW going to Vegas and marrying the OW while we were still married and I was totally clueless about the affair. He married her on our anniversary weekend.
HCARD. So right. AP showed up at airport as we were entering for my 60th birthday trip to visit son. Ex was yelling to others to call security as she tried to hit him in the head. They’re still together. That day she was 27, him 60. 🤮
oh ugh. I am so sorry.
So low, that’s despicable.
what a tragic horrible story. Rest in peace, Angela Craig. I am very sorry that you were murdered by this monster who intentionally deceived you and stopped you from leaving multiple times, while slowly murdering you.
It makes me sad that the news stories always focus on the murderer. Angela Craig’s name should be lifted up.
Can we talk about how three women are murdered A DAY by their partners in the us? Thousands of women murdered per year? https://sanctuaryforfamilies.org/femicide-epidemic/
And worse, instead of each death causing spectacular news coverage, outrage, riots or protests – it’s all turned into true crime entertainment. I don’t even want to know how much money cable channels like “investigation discovery” make off of commercializing (and normalizing) the never ending cycle of femicide.
The sad truth is, this is a news story because he was rich, white, and allllmost got away with it. All the other women killed this week, month, and year we will likely never hear about.
what the flying f*ck? this is equally sad and creepy. i wouldn’t put too much blame on the ric though.. he’s a psycho, but also – why the hell didn’t she leave? it’s one thing being a chump and giving second or third chances.. but this is just over the top. also a good reminder for everyone to leave these manipulative entitled creeps or just be thankful that we already did.
Confused AF: I get being frustrated by someone continuing to stay….but haven’t we all done that? Some more than others. This poor woman needed a lot of support to shatter the delusion she was getting from monster-husband (my ex pales in comparison to the gaslighting by this guy!). She obviously didn’t get that support. I do hope this is a wake-up call for medical staff to start looking into spousal-poisoning when someone presents with “mystery” symptoms.
I guess she didn’t leave for the same reason many don’t, wanted an ‘intact’ family for her 6 children; was probably a devout Mormon herself and they’re married not only for life but eternity; loved her husband; was told by RIC/ family that his drug, porn and sex addictions are ‘diseases’ and good Christian women marry in health and sickness and would she leave him if he had multiple cancers? Where to go with 6 children? And he was a very skilled manipulator who probably alienated her from most people who could give her a reality check, and who could brainwash her practically 24/7.
Your post reads a bit like victim blaming.
He was sick! He’s an addict and you think she should leave him?! I bet you would leave a spouse if they got cancer! So cold!
There’s a taste of what she probably got and what I got. How’d you like it?
If she was following the advice that the “professionals” usually give, why would you have trouble understanding this woman’s actions? Do you have similar puzzlement over why cancer patients allow themselves to be “poisoned” with chemotherapy and radiation? Answer: Because it is advised by the professionals, despite being counter-intuitive. The puzzlement should be over why the “professionals” dealing with infidelity so often recommend terrible choices based on nearly zero epidemiological data.
I’d guess fewer than 5% of couples who try to reconcile after cheating end up in a happy and healthy marriage to that partner (IMO, much fewer). With any other health treatment, such a low “success” rate would be rejected as evidence of quackery and profiteering.
I’m still waiting for academic articles and scientific research on how, and how many marriages are made stronger by (multiple) infidelity.
Yes, and the “professionals” that they likely consulted were r-e-l-i-g-i-o-u-s.
Very good medical example.
The answer is hope, desperate hope and being manipulated by con artists when one is at their most vunerable.
We cannot fathom the duplicitous of a true psychopath. You get in their way…you are dead. They don’t deal with “No”. They want it, they get it. And all the while, “One may smile, and smile, and still be a villain” from Shakespeare. How do you guard against that?
Duplicitousness
What’s up with the victim-blaming? She stayed with him the same reason most chumps stay: gaslighting and lying, plus being surrounded with a culture peddling reconciliation.
This was not meant to be victim blaming. Of course it wasn’t her fault that he’s a sick, murdering psychopath and this never should have happened. EVER. But from what I understood, there were MANY red flags and D-days or similar events. And yes, chumps get manipulated and gaslighted, I’ve been there and I’ve given one too many second chances. But when the pattern repeats itself OVER and OVER and you get hurt by the same person a THOUSAND times – it’s also on us chumps to take responsibility for taking them back and being hurt the next thousand times. Because the person showed you who they were. It’s also on YOU if you stay, because you had freaking 100% proof of a million events that this person was going to keep hurting you.
They were also Mormon. They take a tough stance toward divorce and the wives are told to keep sweet and make it work. They are all about how they look to the outside world, no matter how bad it is on the inside.
Uneffingbelievable: I am a member of the L.D.S. Church (52 years) and have personally experienced divorce. Never once did I hear any church member or leader tell to me to “keep sweet and make it work”.
I suggest if you truly want to be “believable”, please speak truthfully when you claim knowledge of how Mormons think and act!!!
My personal belief is that we’re just a group of people trying to make it through life as best we can. And like everyone else Mormons are collectively represented by heinous scumbags, those with high morals and character, and everything in between.
Very obviously, James Craig’s actions epitomize the worst of human behavior and the family’s belief system may or may not have influenced what tragically happened. But making an all encompassing statement about a cumulative group of unique, individual people I find very disappointing.
“Jaded” is correct. Excommunication for adultery is very much a thing. Every church elder I spoke to told me they would support my decision to leave. Divorce is very accepted among “mormon” members and clergy, and is often encouraged for cases of adultery. The problem I had was i naively thought my stbx was being honest with his bishop. When I finally discovered he was lying to the bishop, and I had proof, his excommunication happened swiftly.
I’m just pointing this out from my own personal experience. Adultery alone is grounds for excommunication. I remember this couple that got in trouble for it when I was a kid. It’s not a guaranteed excommunication, but it’s up there. I think there is a disciplinary council that deals with it. Premeditated murder I believe is a definite stripping of the priesthood and excommunication. I could ask my mom or anyone else in my family what the church does. Every Mormon I’ve known personally, doesn’t take a hard stance against divorce, but I don’t live in Salt Lake City either.
I live in the Salt Lake valley of Utah and am a devoted member of the LDS Church. “Keep sweet” is not and never has been a part of the mainstream church’s teachings or slang; that’s a saying of a polygamous cult from southern Utah whose beliefs and practices are disgusting to every believing Latter-day Saint I know. You’re right that the church (like many others) highly values marriage—but not at the expense of members’ happiness or health, and especially not in the last few decades. I was there in the late 1990s when an LDS bishop told a close family member of mine to “get out of this marriage NOW” in response to her coming to him for counsel. I also was part of a group of members of my local congregation who have just recently been helping a neighbor of ours leave her verbally abusive sociopathic partner (doing yard work for her, using church funds to pay her bills, filing affidavits for court hearings about what we’ve seen around the neighborhood). As I believe is the case with many chumps, our strong belief that marriage is sacred and highly important makes many of us MORE disgusted by people like this murdering psychopath. I hope his wife had good friends in her local ward (congregation) who stood with her and would have been there waiting had she been able to leave.
I hear you, Stacey Kratz and totally agree! I can confirm the LDS Church does not condone staying in abusive marriages to porn-addicted sociopaths, as evidenced personally to me (a non-Mormon) by good LDS folks I’ve known and The Betrayal Trauma Recovery (BTR) Podcast of Anne Blythe (who is a Mormon) and their affordable BTR group sessions welcome to women of all faith traditions and/or to women of no faith traditions at all.
I refer Chumped wives to Chump Lady and to the amazing BTR.org resource whenever “porn addiction” and/or cheating abuse is at all suspected to be present in a marriage. Hence mainstream LDS Church Mormons should not be slandered and stereotyped for the fact that a woman with 6 children chose to stay in a marriage to a dentist who had her and six kids financially dependent on him, while financially abusing his entire family. If she was anything like the vast majority of abused women, who take on average 7 to 9 attempts to leave once they ::::realize::: it’s abuse… I’d bet she had no idea she was even being abused! He had a convincing mask and those texts show how he was lovebombing her. The blame belongs entirely on him.
Thank you for speaking up. I am also a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…in fact I live in Aurora CO. This is just terrible terrible all around. I know people who knew this family for years and they are completely shocked.
I am disgusted, disgusted isn’t even a strong enough word. The church does NOT teach to stay with an abusive husband which he clearly was. All blame for this lies on him, his selfishness. He is an evil evil person and I hope justice is served on him. His poor children. My heart is with them and I hope Angela is finding comfort on the other side.
Exactly – all the blame is on the cheater/abuser. Personal beliefs may play a role in what the chump does, but it’s never ever our fault.
But I think a big issue lies in the fact that bishops are lay people with temporary appointments. This means the quality and approach discrepancies are even wider than with trained clergy. There are some bishops who see their jobs as protecting vulnerable members (even against other members) and there are some who see their job as protecting the church’s image at any cost including by sweeping abuse by members under the rug.
My father’s side of the family is all Mormon and live in Salt Lake City or nearby. (I did not grow up Mormon.) There are many, many among them who are divorced.
They have very high rates of divorce. Partly because returning missionaries are pushed to get married, at the age of around 20. Young marriages are more prone to fail, as you figure out who you are, and your values. Angela was probably pretty gaslighted, by her husband and community. RIP 🌹(I’ve known a lot of Mormons for decades)
According to the linked article, she told him she felt drugged and he responds about understanding why she’d feel triggered. This was due to the previous time he drugged her…..⁉️ I think I’d fear for my children’s safety at that point and get out. I’m guessing there was some elder giving poor advice based on lack of information.
Yep, I was getting text messages from her saying she missed me and loved me while she was doing sparkle dick in the woods by the park. What a creep she was.
It’s important to discuss the culpability of profit-driven messengers. When there is little support from family, friends or the legal system, chumps are at risk. When the consequences for cheaters do not align with their sense of entitlement, chumps are at risk.
It is important for everyone to have a safety plan which includes making copies of important documents, having a separate credit card and bank account, not keeping erratic behavior a secret.
By the way, what is the legal definition of “accomplice”?
“By the way, what is the legal definition of “accomplice”?”
I would like to know that. I am adamant that the fully informed adultery partner fits the definition to a T. The adultery partner is lying/scamming everyone that the adulterer is lying to and scamming.
It does not matter one whit their circumstances, be she a Dentist, or a low wage earning single mother.
Took a quick jaunt over to Amazon by clicking on the link for “My Husband’s Affair BECAME the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”.
Under “Customer who viewed this item also viewed…” there are twelve titles listed, all but two of which are blatantly RIC garbage:
– “Healing from Infidelity: The Divorce Busting® Guide to Rebuilding Your Marriage After an Affair”;
– “After the Affair, Third Edition: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful”;
– “Infidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples: Tools and Exercises to Rebuild Your Relationship”; etc.)
– “The Courage to Stay: How to Heal From an Affair and Save Your Marriage”
– etc.
You have to go to the 2nd grouping to find LACGAL :(, but I’m pleased to report it’s the only book in the lot that has a full 5-star composite rating.
About a month after D-Day, after my cheater had assured me she had broken off the affair, I found a bunch of personal messages to her BFF showing that she hadn’t. What really scared me about these messages was what she was saying about me.
She was telling her friend about how I hadn’t been sleeping or eating for weeks and said, “do you think he’s staying up all night thinking of ways to harm me?”
I wasn’t. I was in a constant state of panic attack trying to fight suicidal ideation.
I realized immediately that this was DARVO or impression management, even though I hadn’t yet heard either of those terms, and I left.
If she could turn my trauma into claims of her victim hood, what wouldn’t she do? I didn’t want to wait around to find out.
Eventually someone shot five bullets into my horse barn. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure it was her boyfriend. I used to see his car loitering around my front gate. Then as soon as I came out of the house he would drive off.
Sickening but not surprising. I discovered texts between fuckwit and his OW discussing how fun it would be to rape and beat me, along with their shared fantasies of harming other women (OW even had even sent fuckwit list of women that she wanted to kill). Even after I left him, I was terrified that they might harm my pets, my family or me.
People who’ve never experienced this form of abuse often underestimate what fuckwits and their accomplices are capable of. These people are self serving and unstable at their core and some of them feel entitled to kill anyone they perceive standing in their way.
Wow! Hopefully she’s long gone with her shooter-boyfriend! She must of told him some whoppers for him to come after you! My ex’s Schmoopie has also lied to my ex & our kids that she was an abused woman. My friends are friends with her last ex & she has her own police file (that includes all her assaults against her last three husbands). Isn’t my ex-husband lucky to be number four?!
Similar story for me, Observer. I found out FW said something to his AP that scared me. He told her that I would kill him if he found out and asked schmoopie to make sure he got justice if it happened.
Since he had no reason to believe that, and because FWs like to project, I do believe those were his own fantasies about killing me. It’s entirely possible that your FW was projecting as well.
Sometimes I think *all* FWs have those kind of fantasies. How many stories have we heard just like this one, where a FW kills the spouse in order to be with the AP. Divorce would cost them, so they kill instead. Horrifying how cold these scum are.
So scary… I hope all was ok!
@Observer — on the very same day mine went on a “I’m so sorry, I’m trying, I know I’m making mistakes, I know I’m being a bitch, ILY ILY ILY” texting frenzy to me, she sent a text to fuckbuddy falsely telling him that I gave her a black eye. (I didn’t find this out until a month later.)
As I was planning to intercept their planned fuck date IN MY HOUSE the day after I found out about this, the same thoughts went through my mind:
– If she could lie about this, what wouldn’t she lie about?
– What explanation would she give our daughters if schmoopie decided he needed to be a ‘hero’ and take a tire iron or baseball bat to my head?
– Which possibility was worse — that she gave no thought at all to setting me up for domestic assault charges, or that she gave deliberate thought to it and its possible ramifications and decided to do it anyway?
These are the things that chill me to this day.
KK is a case study in cheater behavior.
My husband would sometimes joke about my life insurance or with my higher wages that I was his “sugar momma.” Which all became very creepy once I learned of his affair with a married howorker. I mean if 2 people are conspiring against you and you’re one of the obstacles from keeping them together all the time then it’s not that big of a leap for you to have an accidental death of some sort. One never knows if your spouse turns out to have sociopathic tendencies and what kind of gem affair partner they attracted!
Or what kind of a partner they enlisted to do their dirty work. The ultimate power trip of a coward.
We have seen SO many cases where a spouse was murdered simply because they were “in the way”. These cheaters jump into an affair, and then come D-Day THEN they start worrying about what they will lose. Usually, they are worried mainly about the financial loss.
So these monsters kill their wives and children rather than downgrade their lifestyle. And then it is on the news, and yet the next monster does the same damn thing thinking they will be the one to get away with it. This poor woman left 6 kids who will now have no mom nor dad. All because he wanted to screw someone else. Someone else who would also lose their shine once they became the wife and a year or two passed.
Please tell me no horses or people were hurt by the five bullets? That’s crazy
No. Thankfully the horses and people were long gone by then.
I bought into RIC crap at first (hence my username). But I saw glimpses of rage that scared me.
Is it possible I could have been injured or killed if I’d stayed? Maybe it’s also “Leave a Cheater, SAVE a life?” In some cases that might be true. Thank you, Tracy!!
These stories of the secret lives of murderous spouses are becoming too common. I am absolutely horrified (and currently experiencing and fighting tooth and nail) the disgusting profit driven industries surrounding infidelity, divorce and court. Nobody seems to have any common sense anymore and I am repulsed by the constant abuse directed at the victims by the agencies who purport to support/help them.
more personally…the day I found out about the extent of the secret second life (and the awful DARVO lies he was spewing to mistress) was legitamately the most terrifying moment of my life; I was physically shaking. It was an aha moment where I finally saw a glimpse of the real monster; not the person who I foolishly entrusted with my safety, security and heart. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure what this person was truly capable of and I was petrified.
It wasn’t even 6 weeks from the day Chris Watts put his soon-to-be mistress’s phone number in his contacts to the day he murders his pregnant wife and 2 little girls. That’s how fast they can turn. Shanann knew something was wrong but most of that time was out of state on a family vacation with the kids. Who knows how long he had devalued her and the kids in his mind, while playing the loving husband and father? Shanann knew something was wrong, but she came home from a business trip and slept in the marital bed, never to wake up. Not everyone is a Watts-level psychopath, but it’s not safe to lay your head beside someone who is lying to you, over and over, or devaluing you in public or private.
Shannon Watts knew something was wrong. But I doubt she had ANY idea that he was planning to murder them all. I followed the case at the time but don’t remember the details. If I am wrong, apologies. It’s my recollection that in several cases like this, the husband was cheating (so, abusive, yes) but was in no way violent towards the family, until they murdered them. It always struck me as MORE scary, that these woman just had NO idea. They thought things were fine, or at least not life threatening, and then they were dead.
You have it right. Chris Watts played the loving, doting husband and father to the end. And even asked her to have another baby (she was quite pregnant with a boy when he strangled her). Shanann only got a strange feeling at the end because near the end he had spent less time on their calls while she and the girls were away visiting their families, and when he came out to visit (soon before she returned home), he wasn’t physically affectionate with her (and he usually was). Chilling.
I was literally reading this post when it came up on the Today Show this morning. One more creepy tidbit about this psychopath dentist? He had drugged Angela before — about 5 years ago. There were texts where Angela said she “feels drugged.” He replied something like “for the record, I didn’t drug you.” Because he has done it before and she was already scared.
Please don’t blame Angela. I’m seeing some “Why didn’t she leave” on here already. She was abused. CL is correct that RIC or others likely played into her staying. But she also had 6 children and who knows what the reasons were that she stayed. But she was clearly abused and gaslighted and living in fear. This story is terrible.
And it likely happens more than then we realize. This creepy ass dentist was hoping his wife would just die “mysteriously” and he would never be looked at as the cause —- because others get away with it. Look at Drew Peterson (the Chicago former police sergeant whose 4th wife Stacy went missing in October 2007). Stacy’s disappearance made police re-examine the 2004 death of Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen. Her drowning in a dry (!) bathtub was ruled an accident initially, but after Stacy went missing, they exhumed Kathleen’s body and found it to be a homicide.”
Or look at Murdaugh killing his wife and son… now all other deaths are being re-examined… The young man that died in a “hit and run” Is now being looked at as a homicide.
Please have grace for victims of abuse. I think there’s too many of us here that tried to reconcile multiple times and consider themselves lucky not to be dead at the hands of a FW.
Just to repeat something from another comment, isn’t the fact that an abuser killed their partner enough proof that the victim had ample reason to fear leaving? Duh. Statistically speaking, risk of being killed rises 70-fold from the moment an abuse victim tries to escape. When I worked in advocacy, we’d hear remarks in the wake of domestic murder cases from the usual bystanders about how “if she’d left ten years ago she’d still be alive.” The stock response among advocates (at least in the service I worked for) was “Did you ever consider that if she’d left ten years ago she would have been dead ten years ago?”
I think our stock response was tinged with irritation and could misleadingly sound like an argument that abuse victims shouldn’t leave. In fact, the service I worked with was all about trying to help victims leave but to help them leave SAFELY which can sometimes be like defusing a bomb and require intricate preparations and the gathering of resources that aren’t always accessible to most victims. No one knows the risks they face more than the person directly in the situation. Once you break through the survival mechanism of captor bonding/Stockholm syndrome, you may find out why individual survivors captor bonded to begin with– because they were typically under pragmatic and real threat. Then it was about sorting through and analyzing those threats and risks one by one and strategizing to surmount them.
If someone is living in dire danger, Stockholm syndrome only starts to really fade once its demonstrated that the bulk of the threats posed by the abuser can be successfully neutralized. One of our “clients” back in the day was a monosyllabic teenage girl who was being physically abused and was witnessing her mother being abused by a politically powerful father. She only reached out sporadically, would sometimes change tacks and defend her dad and would disappear if anyone foisted too much “counsel” on her. All we could do was drop a hint that she could take advantage of the state’s one party consent recording law and secretly tape her father’s abuse with the added note that it would be better to have the evidence and not use it than to need it and not have it. We pulled short of commanding her to march the evidence over to the cops for fear she’d scamper away again. In the end she disappeared and we didn’t know what happened to her. But a few years later I saw the girl, by then a young adult, on CNN talking about how she used secret recordings to get her father thrown out of office and had even rescued her own mother who also seemed to wake from the dead once there was enough evidence to quell the dad. The girl wasn’t monosyllabic anymore, she was downright eloquent. When the interviewer played devil’s advocate and quoted the dad’s blameshifting statements against his daughter, she didn’t blink and easily dismissed her father’s claims as illogical and just the typical denials of an abuser.
At the time she first reached out, we had no idea that this girl was not only absorbing everything she was hearing in those group meetings but ran with all of it, studied the clinical resources, made herself an expert on her own experience. We didn’t push her too hard because we were trained to trust that most victims DO eventually leave even if at first they seem to be resisting aid and advice. On average it can take up to seven tries for victims to break free of abuse and each attempt is a matter of building resources and resolve which can lead to eventual success. But when someone is just starting on that road and doesn’t quickly enough “pay back” their rescuers with kibbles of reverent acknowledgement, would-be rescuers can get frustrated and even angry that the victim “refuses to be helped.” But it doesn’t help victims to pretend that leaving is simple when it isn’t. Like in the case of the former client, she couldn’t just wave a newspaper at the wasp, she had to be prepared to proverbially kill it and be prepared for a firestorm of public scrutiny and her father’s legal retaliation which could have also harmed her mother. There were more complicating factors as well which explained in retrospect why she was so skittish at first.
I think the best policy is to assume that when someone appears to be paralyzed by abuse, it’s most likely a measure of the severity of the abuse and the danger they’re in, not the character of the victim. Not that it doesn’t help for advocates to clear away and discount all the cultural and social prohibitions against dumping or escaping or reporting an abuser. I remember clearly telling this girl that “blood may be thicker than water but so is used motor oil” in the case this took the “family loyalty” and “obey thy father” pressure off her. But that was just taking a few straws off the camel’s back. The bigger obstacles to escape, aside from her being a minor kid at the time, was the risk that her father might be lethal, that he had the power to destroy her mother and leave his family financially bereft, throw his daughter into an institution, etc. Maybe if she’d been pressured to report things before she was ready, she would have ended up dead or in the loony bin. As an advocate, since I wasn’t prepared to personally stand between her and a tire iron or personally pay for a team of top lawyers to protect her civil rights, I had no place to give commands and directives. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary anyway.
Awesome story! Well done, all of you!
Raising my hand here. The first time Dr Cheaterpants was screwing around and was leaving, he told me he fantasized I would die in a plane crash on an upcoming work trip I was going on. We wreckonciled after it didn’t work out with crazy schmoopie and he realized what all the divorce would cost him.
I feel very lucky I got out when I did with the next twu wuv schmoopie and he didn’t just kill me!!
In the beginning of dday, financial upheaval is the reason many chumps accept their situation with the hope things will somehow go back to normal.
I remember being so appalled after Dday, when FW revealed that his patient lawyer had told him at 60 he wouldn’t have time to recover all he would lose in a divorce at our age. He says I don’t want to lose 1/2 of everything we worked so hard for, for a piece of ass….
The true only reason he thought we should stay together. I found out about the pill addiction later which really answered the financial side I had been lied to by him and my own eyes.
From a 2007 NYT article by Harry Hurt III about Suze Orman
Ms. Orman also contends that “more than 50 percent” of women suffer from “Bag Lady Syndrome,” a fear that one day they will end up penniless and homeless. This fear, she says, is only compounded by the “shame” women feel over not knowing about money and their propensity to “blame” others for not teaching them.
The Bag Lady Syndrome can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, she warns, because women undervalue their own worth and put themselves “on sale” at a discount price set by others.
I realized I’d have nothing if I stayed, finding LACGAL propelled me into action.
Well said Michelle. I heard so much “well I wudda, you kudda, shudda” when I was open about my husband’s violence. Even heard it from my very well-meaning sister until I put her straight!
Post for a Friday: why aren’t people more creeped out by double lives? What are things you heard from friends/family when telling them your spouse was leading a completely separate life? How did they justify it?
FW best friend said I feel bad that I believed his lies too. He said later I thought it was odd that he kept having to go see a patient on the weekends. He hadn’t worked weekends for 10-12 years.
I had one (former) friend say, “I’m not comfortable with your talking about them (Ex and in hindsight AP) that way.”
quote from Margaret Atwood:
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
At least two people in his office knew he had ordered one of the poisons which was sent to the office: a staff member who opened it, saw it, then resealed the shipping the box, and his partner and friend, who said they didn’t use it in their practice and advised him to stop talking about why he got it and to get a lawyer. He should have been a friend to the wife and told HER to get a lawyer, maybe saving her life.
I believe the business partner found out about the delivery on March 15 and told the hospital right away. (They went there to visit the victim.) The hospital immediately alerted the police, but it was too late for the wife, who died a couple of days later. That is what I read.
The windows to my car were mysteriously all smashed out during the night during the time that FW was trying to “encourage” me to leave the house. I’m sure it was him. He was supposedly out of town (about three hours’ drive) on a business trip. But here is the thing–ALL the windows of my car were smashed. ALL OF THEM. Somebody put a lot of effort with a baseball bat into making my car completely undriveable. And no other car on the street was attacked–just mine. When I called FW to tell him, the first words out of his mouth were, “It wasn’t me. I’m on a business trip.” And then he laughed. And at that moment, deep down in my heart, I knew it was him. I still can’t prove it, but I know he drove back and smashed out my windows. The creepy thing is that I think he planned to kill me that night–while he was away “on a business trip.” I think he chickened out and decided to scare me instead.
If someone lies to you, cheats on you, steals from you, etc for years and years… it’s not a stretch to imagine they will kill you.
“If someone lies to you, cheats on you, steals from you, etc for years and years… it’s not a stretch to imagine they will kill you.”
Bears repeating.
Getting my tire slashed was bad enough, all the windows in the car would scare me too.
I’m am so glad you covered this, this morning. The worst thing for me was reading all the text messages between them. Such a loving hard working devoted husband. When she asks him to do something he says Done. So scary because this is exactly how my husband talks to me. You would never guess something is off. I agree with others please don’t victim shame. She stayed because surprise surprise gaslighting actually works. Your confusion keeps you stuck. I’m glad he was caught, his children would have never known or believed it.
Chumps by their nature and lack of boundaries want to fix things, make people happy and especially not hurt other people or kids. Narcissist love stomping on boundaries, breaking things and have an exaggerated sense of intelligence and entitlement. Almost the perfect recipe for the cheater to consider homicide and that they can get away with it. I’d bet half the people they knew remained silent, but had a bad feeling about him. The other half, had no idea, shocked he could do such a thing. This is the very reason we have to share the messages of boundaries, trust that they suck. And mostly LACGAL, could actually be your life!
THE NARRATIVE HAS TO CHANGE‼️‼️‼️ There are likely millions more chumps driven to mental health facilities, taking up hospital beds, struggling for their families to stay together despite the double lives of their mates,STDs, and ongoing insidious and obvious abuse. This may only be the tip of the iceberg in numbers of destroyed lives. Death is just one way. There are a thousand other cuts no one ever sees. It brings me to tears what true love and commitment can lead you to and what hate and deception’s end point can look like. 💔
Look here for details of who knew about the poisons, and when. https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/affidavit-aurora-dentist-researched-undetectable-poisons-purchased-arsenic-and-cyanide-before-wifes-death
Reading about his orchestration of all that and his texts and manipulation of not only his wife but everyone around him is utterly chilling. Those six children 💔
This is so sad. When are we going to stop the narrative that people need to pair off for life no matter what, that having the courage to leave a bad, abusive marriage is some kind of failure and something to be ashamed of? This poor woman. Why do so many, especially women, feel this need to “work” on terrible marriages and try to “save” them? Sometimes it costs them their lives.
The judge issued a mandatory protection order to keep him from seeing their children. Angela’s sister is going to be taking care of them. A lot of case details, including his emails and texts, are available here. The video there also has a lot more information. https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/affidavit-aurora-dentist-researched-undetectable-poisons-purchased-arsenic-and-cyanide-before-wifes-death His website is down.
I saw this yesterday and the first thing that came to my mind was that he had been cheating. The first news story I read did not mention anything about it.
The second thing that came to my mind was an upsetting experience I had with the former Chump Nation Facebook group back in 2020, which led to my departure.
This is my email I sent to Chump Lady back in 2020:
“Hi Tracy,
Thanks for today’s blog. I left the Facebook group (Chump Lady Nation) because one of the administrators came after me for linking murder, suicide, and infidelity in a personal experience I shared about. Had she just been a member I would have ignored her chastising me, but her comments, coming from a group administrator, left me feeling unsafe in the group. It really rattled me.
When I joined I assumed the group was yours and the group administrators were people you appointed.”
An administrator from the original Facebook group (NOT the newly established official Chump Nation Facebook page) criticized and censured me. “Cheating doesn’t cause murder!” she wrote. I was reckless and irresponsible for posting such beliefs. I think she removed my post.
If you follow true crime, or talk to law enforcement, you know there is absolutely a link between cheating and murder. Of course it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that every chump’s fate is homicide, but it happens often enough that I now consider cheating to be an indicator that someone is a dangerous person.
Cheating is abuse, and abuse often ends in homicide, suicide, or both. That is a DV fact. It is 100% irresponsible to suggest otherwise.
Personally, I believe if someone is a cheater, you don’t know what they are capable of, and it’s a good idea to act as if they could be capable of the ultimate crime. Lots of people think it can’t happen until it does.
Ask Laci Peterson’s family if they saw it coming. Ask Shanann Watt’s family if they saw it coming.
Don’t let anybody tell you that “cheating doesn’t cause murder!” It is absolutely a motive and has been since the dawn of time.
That’s one thing I hate about FB… so many posters push their personal opinions as though they are the only ones. As I read many posts I don’t think that people truly hear others, they just get on their soapbox with their bossy advice.
I agree with you, it doesn’t take too many tv shows or movies or Anne Rule books to know that cheaters escalate. Often.
I agree! I truly believe that cheating is a form of domestic and emotional abuse – the gaslighting, lying and manipulation along with not allowing Chumps to consent to the physical risk of STD’s… If someone is capable of infidelity, they could easily be capable of much worse.
As we were getting ready to file my divorce petition in Florida, the paralegal asked if I’d been abused, then qualified her question with only physically abused counts, sadly. Yep, the gaslighting, financial abuse and HPV (cleared when no longer exposed)didn’t count….
Divorce Minister sums up cheating perfectly and succinctly:
“The cheating is a symptom–not of the marriage issues–but of the character deficit of the cheater.”
It doesn’t help that cheating is socially accepted, minimized, defended, used as fodder for romantic comedies, laughed about. The chump (who is sometimes even a homicide victim so the cheater is free to be with Schmoopie, is blamed by others and blames themselves.
I think it’s a good idea to start thinking of cheating as a code blue warning about someone’s character. And that goes for all parties in the illicit relationship. Chumps are also murdered by affair partners.
Perfectly said, Velvet!
And while I’m at it, fuck his therapist who said to me, “He was unhappy and met someone and fell in love.” That is complete bullshit and I told him so. If I am unhappy in a piece of clothing, I don’t keep wearing it. If I am unhappy with a movie, I don’t watch it again. If I am unhappy with a restaurant, I don’t keep eating there.
When I was unhappy in my relationships, I made efforts to problem-solve. If that failed, I LEFT.
I did not even have someone lined up for after I left. I spent time on my own before getting involved with someone else.
“He has character issues and was conducting a secret double life” is the accurate description of what he did. Of what every cheater does. Of what every side piece does. Nichol Kessinger’s interview with detectives after the Watts murders is bone-chilling testimony to her own character disorder.
Illicit relationships are deliberately created and entered into because they get off on that setup. The power move for the chump which means at the very least ACTING AS IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF, is to drop the rope and walk away.
Cheaters and side pieces have serious screws loose. Run.
“And while I’m at it, fuck his therapist who said to me, ‘He was unhappy and met someone and fell in love’.”
Agree!!!
And fuck all the people–flying monkeys, cheater apologists–who adopt this flippant rationale.
Btw, add to that, “It happens all the time.”
Of course, this is a slightly veiled criticism of the chump: “You, chump, were not making the cheater happy. Your fault.”
Stories like this terrify me, not just in the general sense of how deceit and desperation can become a slippery slope in disordered people, but now in retrospect, very personally in regards to my ex’s behavior. While he had always had some inclination, his bdsm/violent tendencies in bed had increased for several months before the end (slapping, shoving face into pillow, choking, etc during nearly every encounter), culminating in the last time hours before DDay when I had figured out he was almost certainly having an affair, when I was strangled far past any level he ever had and I became legitimately terrified that it was an actual expression of anger and desire to harm me (he would later allege he got carried away because schmoopie enjoys this to very extreme levels. Info I could do without!). There simply has to be a huge correlation between cheating and risk of other abusive escalation.
Most terrifyingly however, FW sent me a link to an eerily similar story once, about Larry Rudolph (sadly another dentist…) who killed his wife to be with a very-long time mistress, I think it was something like 10 or even 20 years he’d been sleeping with his office manager. He sent it along with the commentary “She [the dead wife] must have known. Nobody can keep an affair secret for that long.” (Rudolph’s wife did in fact know, and was likely also a victim of RIC, as she was killed when she asked him to fire the mistress, despite Rudolph claiming at trial they were in an open relationship… yes, sure, that kind that chumps don’t actually know they’re already in).
FW was of course secretly telling on himself because he was also fucking his office manager. I had no idea at all at this point, but it was one of many times the affair was waved in plain sight for his amusement. The affair had been going on for allegedly only around 3 months at this point, though we had been together for 8 years and fw had been working with her for 10+ years, so it now makes me assume the timeline is even far more extensive, ie so long that “I must have known”, which he indeed claimed he assumed I had once he was outed. Thinking back on that text is beyond chilling now… it is as if he believed the chump is to blame for being killed because she should have known that he was having an affair, and somehow should have willingly released him so he didn’t have to be the bad guy. May these poor women who were only trying to see the good in a place there was none rest in peace.
Choking or strangulation is an indicator pre-incident indicator for murder. You’re lucky to be here.
It is unfortunate that possessions and pride, and of course money, are more important than your soon to be discarded spouse (and kids) being alive.
I understand the rage that comes when you find out you have been betrayed. Even so, I did not try to murder my spouse(s). I cannot understand plotting to kill my spouse that I have already been cheating on, and perhaps my children. That goes beyond any reasonable expectation, IMHO, and requires legal intervention and investigation. Killing someone who is pregnant with your child, killing your children… ? Seriously?
This type of person is a monster. Any Schmoops that knows what’s going on, and is ok with it, is a monster. No one is that SPECIAL!!!
It’s all about the money. If you divorce your wife you have to give her half of everything. If you kill her and don’t get caught, you get a huge insurance payout. To the disordered it’s a win/win.
I have come to believe that marriage, as the laws are currently, is so entrenched in the oppression and subjugation of women there is no way to make it truly equitable or safe.
YES, it’s the money! This is so eerily similar to my story. He was bringing me coffee during shared-house divorce process when I couldn’t afford to leave (and he shut me off of money as a SAHM) He refused to leave the house, decades of double life – multiple affairs all over the country & porn addiction exposed, fake college degree, fake D1 basketball scholarship all came out after 20 years of marriage. I kept throwing up in the morning and thinking it was stress. My sister finally said to stop drinking and eating anything he gave me and a lightbulb went off. I was also suddenly more motivated to find a way to get divorced. He also took out a life insurance policy on me in the middle of our divorce (I’d never had one) and told anyone who would listen that I was suicidal. I was not suicidal, I was terrified, a SAHM, devastated, and was a victim of a bully sociopath who’d turned up a lifetime of gaslighting to the top degree, so people probably would have believed it. This was nearly me! He didn’t want to divide assets and didn’t want his dirty secrets out. Divorce is easy in my state, it was all about the money and assets we already had, death policy money, and image management.
Right on, Tracy. It’s till death do us part! This shows just how grim that statement can be. That poor, loving, trusting woman. Such an evil thing for her husband to do. What a tragedy for their family. And those poor kids. Makes me ill.
Thanks for speaking about it honestly and plainly, Tracy. As always.
I will share something that my almost 88 year old Uber-Catholic mother has said over many years (since my dad died in 1989, for sure, and probably while he was alive, too):
I have never considered divorcing my husband. Murdering him? Many times!
[This is always said in a joking manner. My dad, like me, could be hard to live with. But she loved him, he loved her, he loved us kids, and we loved him. End of story.]
My dad died of pancreatic cancer that was halted for a few years w/the biggest surgery you can still have (the Whipple procedure still holds that claim, I believe). Turned out it had already spread to his lungs and stomach. The surgery gave us three more years w/him.
I wish Angela Craig’s kids could have had at least three more years w/their mom. I bet they do, too. May their father rot in hell, the murdering bastard (allegedly).
I divorced my husband after he strangled me into unconsciousness and dumped me on the side of the road with the clothes I was wearing and my dog. The whole time he was strangling me, he was chanting, “I’m gonna fix you. I’m gonna fix you good.” Sadly, it wasn’t the first time he strangled me. When we were newlyweds, I woke up in the night with him on top of me, hands around my throat and squeezing. He claimed he was having a nightmare and wasn’t awake/didn’t know what he was doing. I believed him because I wanted to believe him. I missed the cheating because I was looking for women. He was a Jesus Cheater — he liked priests. He still presents himself as a devout Catholic and feminist. A few years ago, a friend who knew us both looked up his Facebook page and noted the various religious memes he was posting, and his loving odes to his girlfriend of 30 years. I worry about her sometimes . . . does she know about the men? Will he try to kill her?
A dozen or so years later, I remarried. My new husband was handsome, charming, brilliant, funny . . . you know where this is going, right? He was a (diagnosed) Narcissist. When our neighbors had a boating accident — the wife was crushed between the dock and the boat her husband was driving, my loving husband asked all of the boaters in our neighborhood marina for details of the accident — evidently she took a line and jumped from the boat to the dock, missed the dock and fell into the water. And he, driving a small and relatively maneuverable power boat, crushed her up against the dock. She died within minutes of a ruptured aorta. He was “heartbroken” but somehow managed to overcome his heartbreak and remarry by the next boating season. And somehow, my husband was now encouraging me to jump impossible distances from the deck of our boat with a line. (I refused, not because I didn’t trust my husband, but because the orthopedic surgeon who replaced my knees told me to avoid jumping at all costs.) Eventually, I retired and sold “our house” (the one I bought with the profits from selling the house I owned before marrying), the contents, the car and sailing off to travel the ICW in our sailboat. By the time we got to Florida, I had realized that he wasn’t just “stressed” or “an emotional guy” but a genuinely abusive Narcissist. One of our boating newsgroups had done an article on boating “accidents,” and one of the “accidents” was a couple who ran aground on a well known and well marked sand bar and sank. The husband claimed that his wife had gone below to get her purse and just never came back. He abandoned ship without her — he lived, she died. The article was written as a cautionary tale — what not to do if you run aground. My husband saw it as an opportunity. When we reached that exact location, he deliberately ran the boat aground on the very same sandbar and then tried to persuade me to go below to get my purse, the other handheld radio, batteries for the radio, the solar charger for his phone, etc. etc. It didn’t occur to me until months later that he had been setting me up. Again, I didn’t go below . . . not because I was afraid of my husband, but because I knew it was a bad idea. While I was sitting on the cabin top with our sailboat heeling over farther and farther as the tide ebbed, afraid for our lives and the loss of our home, he was texting away happily and posting on Facebook. Months later, after D-day, I found those texts . . . he was texting his old high school girlfriend, planning a meeting for after I was out of the way. NOW I’m afraid of that man, but to the best of my knowledge, he’s at least a thousand miles away. He’s still living on the sailboat . . . I fled to the middle of the country, at least a thousand miles from salt water.
I’m happily single now, and planning to stay that way. Call me paranoid, but my experiences have led me to believe that many “accidents” and “illnesses” are men murdering inconvenient wives. I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, in a cold sweat at how narrowly I missed being murdered by the husband I loved with my whole heart. Not just one husband, but two. (I sure can pick them.) It scares me how often such men are viewed as “salt of the earth” and “good Christian men.” People think they know my ex-husbands and that they’re good men and devout Christians. I don’t think we really know anyone unless we have lived with them, and even then I’m not sure. I completely missed my sister’s narcissism and sociopathy until I realized she had slept with not just my first cheating husband, but the last as well.
I’m sorry that you went through that — TWICE. Just horrible.
My ex was a part-time preacher from a family of preachers and missionaries. I thought I was “safe.” He and his extended family were NOT safe at all. The divorce was bad. Thankfully, he’s far away and didn’t waste any time building a new life where he could start over.
I cannot fathom anything but remaining single. I’m older, so getting a new romantic partner at this age would mean way too many changes and adjustments that I’m not willing to undertake. I am truly A-OK as-is.
I do some local advocacy volunteer work, particularly with “church women,” and it always reminds me of how far I’ve come. I helped a woman leave last summer. We packed and moved her belongings out of a huge house in just six hours for her to go live in another state. She had the divorce paperwork ready. Certain people thought she was crazy, and then he showed his true colors. It’s an active case, so I’m not going to say more than that. She’s so glad that she got out when she did.
And I’m glad she was able to get the help she needed to get her belongings out of her house. Good for you!
I’m happy you lived to tell this tale. It’s scary to think how easily a “nice guy” & sometimes a “nice woman” can get away with murder. I don’t think my ex tried anything directly (but who really knows except him) however, I think he neglected to accompany me on my hikes perhaps hoping I would plunge to my death. On any level, an uncaring partner can be harmful.
I’m so sorry.
I’ve dealt with a couple sociopaths too and don’t think I’ll ever date again. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I just have no drive for it and have a hard time imagining someone who’s better than being single.
People really don’t understand unless they’ve been through it too. Monsters walk among us.
“Good Christian men” are the ones my 50+ years of life experience has trained me to be the most wary of.
I have absolutely nothing against religion but I am also suspect of anyone broadcasting that they are good Christians. It’s to throw people off the scent of their true character.
Wow. Just …. wow. I’m glad you are all right. I’m also glad that you are a thousand miles away from that “devout Catholic and feminist.” 😳
I am so sorry you lived through this. And I refuse to believe victims have predator beams. I think you were unlucky and I think that it’s unfortunate there are so many scary people.
The biggest lesson in life is that not all devils wear horns. Regarding predator beams, the stalking coworker whom I prosecuted was released after pleading out and found in the bushes outside my house at midnight wearing his father’s medical fatigues (presumably for the blood) and casually petting the neighbor’s skittish cat. I remember how when people brought their small children to work, the kiddies would RUN to this guy. A psycho worth their salt can change their vibe down to a cellular level. By the time you’re close enough to pick up on the danger, it’s probably already too late to get away unscathed.
I second what Tracy says.
You are not with them anymore and you are alive. You did see. We can’t control when we see. What’s important is that we did.
I heard a detective say, “you only know someone as much as they will let you.”
There are monsters among us who are expert liars. It can’t always be, and is all too often not, obvious. Humans aren’t mind readers with X-ray vision. Bernie Madoff’s victims thought he was a great guy, for decades, until stock market conditions revealed their empty bank accounts.
I had my blind spots because of my upbringing and life experience, but ultimately I cannot blame myself for another’s willingness and ability to violate me and my daughter or anyone else.
My local domestic violence advocacy organization now classifies strangulation as its own separate category of domestic violence, as opposed to being under the umbrella of physical violence as before.
http://www.centerfordomesticpeace.org
I’m starting to think a cheater’s every act with AP, every lie to cover it up — every one is its own little drop of poison. Maybe it’s not literal like this, but it’s all part of the same spectrum. And makes it clearer that the unicorn-wrangling industry is dangerously foolish.
This is horrifying. Poor Angela was a victim of ongoing abuse so severe it resulted in her death. My heart goes out to her children who have to live with this for the rest of their lives. If nothing else, I hope that Angela’s story and legacy helps even one other woman leave a dysfunctional and abusive relationship, before it’s too late.
Similar cases prompted “coercive control” legislation in Connecticut whereby victims of “merely” emotional control, abuse and coercion can get protective orders. In California and Hawaii, victims can also be granted custody of children. In the UK, perpetrators of coercive control can end up in prison for 5 to 15 years. https://www.theacecc.com/post/not-all-bills-are-created-equal-a-review-of-coercive-control-legislation
It’s finally being recognized that abuse can be progressive and that certain patterns of emotional and psychological abuse can predict violence or even murder. Not incidentally, the two spousal murder cases in Connecticut that led to “Jennifer’s law” being instituted began with the abusers cheating.
Hell of a Chump, thank you for sharing this! I just went down the rabbit hole on Jennifer’s Law and ‘coercive control’ and it is absolutely a positive thing for victims of abuse of all kinds. So glad progress is being made.
It could help chumps, too. Even if it’s outlawing cheating isn’t legislatable, a lot of the abusive behaviors that cheaters engage in to facilitate cheating meet the requirements for coercive control charges.
So horrifying. I literally have no words. So many similarities…
People have no fucking clue what it’s like to be married to a guy like this. None. The act like, “oh the wife pretended it was perfect, she was complicit.” Nope. Big fat effing nope. He acted like a great husband, he said all the right things to her and everyone helse, he told her and everyone else how much he loved his wife. SO MUCH! She wasn’t pretending.
So that every time something weird happened that worried her, every fucking goddamn person she knew told her that it must be something else or stress or she was being dramatic or overreacting because they all knew how much he loved her. Her own family would have done that to her. Her own friends. Her DOCTORS! Her THERAPISTS! That’s how this works with these guys. She would be diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on meds before anyone even considered he might be the problem. I say that because it is literally what happened to me.
There’s text messages sent from Chris Watt’s murdered wife to friends where she thinks something is really wrong and she’s being chided for thinking that because he’s such a great husband who loves her so much. Her own friends were shaming her for picking up on the fact that something was wrong with him. And she got murdered over it. And her children were murdered over it. She had zero support until she was fucking dead. That’s how it works with these guys.
Mine point blank laughed in my face while telling me how he’d been planning to kill me for years. I had zero clue. I had no idea. I thought our marriage was doing great and he was planning my murder. If he hadn’t told me and sent me hysterically sobbing to a divorce lawyer to get our divorce done in under two months, I’d be dead. And he might’ve gotten away with it because “golly gee whiz, he’s just such a great guy and he loved his wife so much but you know, she was… troubled.” And they STILL think that. Even with his direct threats about killing me, they think he’s a great guy and I’m dramatic and troubled. There’s no winning with psychopaths like this, there is only surviving. I got lucky. This woman didn’t. I feel terrible for her and her children. Anybody who blames her just has absolutely no fucking idea what it’s like to be married to one of these guys.
YOUR OWN PARENTS WILL TURN ON YOU! YOUR OWN SIBLINGS! YOUR OWN CHILDREN! The psychopath will get everyone to turn on you out of concern for your obvious declining mental state. They are good at doing this. They have spent their entire lives practicing being human and manipulating actual humans. THEY ARE GOOD AT IT!
When DOCTORS are literally telling you that you are mentally ill and the things he’s doing are not real, how are you supposed to fight that? Fighting it at that point can get you locked up and heavily drugged. I had a literally PSYCHIATRIST look me dead in the eye and say, “your husband would never hurt you, that is a delusion.” while my husband was LITERALLY PLOTTING MY MURDER. That was reality but I was being told if I faced that reality, that meant I was even sicker and needed to be drugged more. Do you know what that’s like? To pick up on signs that someone you love might be betraying you and planning to harm you and then to be told by professionals that if you try to find out what’s going on or get any help with that, you’re going to be locked up and have your life completely destroyed?!
People just have no damn idea. None.
It’s because chumps do the uncomfortable thing of telling the truth, which people don’t like. They don’t like to sit with bad or negative emotions and it’s so much easier to side with the cheater because they’re “happy” and “fun”. The chump must deserve every abuse thrown their way because bad things don’t happen to good people don’t you know.
Angry, I’m a truth teller. Always have been. Direct sometimes to a fault (per the criticisms I’ve heard.)
At my new (almost a year) job I didn’t talk for a long time. I don’t feel safe in the group in general.
But when I do speak, I am honest, even if I’m joking about reality. That’s my sense of humor. It’s so obvious that several people don’t like it or act so offended. It’s a very small small group, mostly women and I’d definitely describe it that abusiveness is allowed by the passive owner/manager. The inmates also have a general lack of respect for everyone.
I’m so glad you were able to see the truth and take the steps to get free despite all of the naysaying you encountered. You are absolutely right . . . people have no freaking idea.
KatiePig — absolutely! When FW left me, NO ONE believed me. I had friends tell me for MONTHS that there was “no way”…. And that FW was such a “great guy” and “great father” and “spent so much time with his son”… so when FW was literally verbally and physically abusing our son, no one believed me. It made me feel like I was an idiot. I had to start RECORDING things. My therapist told me to put up cameras outside the house and inside too — in case he tried to get in (because he kept threatening that he’d go in with my son’s key). The same friends that doubted me were sitting with me at our Book club at a local Starbucks one evening when my son called screaming from visitation with his dad —he was about 11 years old and he was crying and saying that FW had called the POLICE on him. When I got off the phone to race home, my friends stopped me to apologize and finally accepted that FW was as horrific as I’d said. FW’s mask had fallen completely off in public — finally. But it’s terrifying that FWs can so effectively gaslight everyone.
It’s so stupid to blame domestic murder victims for not leaving sooner. All the proof anyone needs that victims were living under the gun of coercion is the fact that they were eventually killed. Even more proof could be found in how some bystanders frantically rush in to defend domestic murderers even when they’ve never met them (blaming victims is an obvious vote for abusers). Aren’t they also arguably cuddling up to an abuser as a way of groveling for amnesty from abusers in a collective sense in case there are any abusers lurking in their personal lives? So why don’t victims leave soon if it’s so bad? The same reason some bystanders feverishly vow fealty to abusers: terror. And when abusers kill, that fear is effectively validated.
I think everyone has an ancient, primitive or even quantum part of their brain devoted only to risk management like a little accountant character reading intangible, animal cues and gestures, factoring sums all day and then alerting the subconscious mind through body sensations, inklings, dreams, etc. Merely being in close proximity to a person who’s capable of violence would set off constant risk management alerts. But to the extent that psychopathic people often deftly mask their agendas, gaslighting causes victims’ brains to be at war with their own perceptions. Abusers also typically weave coercive webs of dire consequences around victims making it technically harder for victims to leave. But the biggest obstacle to leaving is probably simply the abusers’ capacity for violence. The risk of being killed by an abuser rises 70-fold from the moment the victim attempts to escape. Deep down in our monkey brains, we all know this. Unfortunately, cultural messaging and the rules of polite society disrupt these perceptions and put people at more risk.
Intuition. The book “Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker is really great. It talks about what you’ve posted Hell of a Chump.
And even after Chris Watts callously murdered his wife and small children there were people online STILL blaming Shannan for her own death because she had a MLM-type business. Or because she was on FB a lot. Or because she left him alone to take her kids to visit family out of state. Or ….
I also even saw people blame Laci Peterson because she liked shopping. Or was too wrapped up in her upcoming baby. Or ….
The stories we tell women and girls are terrifying.
I never, ever thought my ex would hurt me, but I didn’t expect any of the things he did when he discarded me. One weekend late afternoon I had fallen asleep in our bed. He was still living at our home because I was desperately trying to reconcile. I was sleeping a lot because I was so overwhelmed and upset. I woke up to find him kneeling at the side of the bed, in the dark, staring at me. I was so creeped out. When he saw that I had woken and seen him, he got up and left the room without a word. I honestly think if he thought he could have gotten away with it he would’ve smothered me there and then. Take all the money, play the grieving widower.
I made him move out the next week and never have seen him again.
Snap, but in a *horror* way Cheesy. Omg!! I had the same experience with my ExCheater.
I woke one morning to find mine also kneeling beside me on my side of the bed and staring at me really intensely. He then tried to be affectionate and tell me how beautiful I am when I’m sleeping ☠️ but I was so deep in sleep I motioned him away and rolled over. This was after at least 6-8 months of hardcore gaslighting, feigned sadz and general abusive behavior (excessive drinking, refusing to come upstairs to bed secretive phone use bla bla chumps know the list too well). At this point of the devaluation phase, I was upset, and stressed out of my mind as well as confused af at his entire persona since his recent overseas trip but I knew it was weird. Really freaking-me-out kind of weird. He did the full discard and abandonment about 2 weeks later.
He also faked being scared of ne once out of nowhere when he came to pick up the dog. It was so out of character that I actually laughed. Now, putting that intel package together and to me it was all very threatening.
I commented on one of the previous Alex Murdaugh CL posts that it is always dangerous if your spouse or partner is cheating. Cheating is an escalation of behavior on the spectrum of other abuses. That is the most real and serious reason to leave the relationship above any other consideration: safety for the chump, children and pets above all.
*and my comment above is in no way victim blaming — rather an acknowledgement of the risks so it is qualified by “if it is indeed possible” to leave knowing that some may not be able to and that’s the most tragic thing of all.
Glad you survived. Your posts are brutal, honest and badass.
Yep, Katiepig, this is my sister’s story, thankfully she got out of there and we (her family) believe her but none of the social workers or docs would even listen to her or us, only her charming innocent poor victim husband at the time. Thankful he is now her ex
This story triggers me.
The only time I’ve ever been in an ambulance was 6 weeks before XH left for his secret affair partner. I had just had major knee surgery the day before and woke in the middle of the night with severe abdominal pain. I was as white as a ghost and sweating. I asked my husband to call 911, and he just stood there watching curiously until I started screaming.
After some nausea meds and an IV, I was discharged home at 6:00 AM. My husband went straight to work (OW was a coworker).
He was in charge of my meds after surgery. I’ll never not believe that if he didn’t try to kill me, he was at least hopeful I suffered a complication that did!
Like the good dentist, my XH was the nice guy. The guy that would walk a spider out of the house or help an old person with their groceries. Disturbing.
We went to Maui the week before he left with my family to scatter my mom’s ashes. My dad treated my husband to a $300 round of golf because he “took good care of my daughter after surgery”. Husband ended our marriage in the ride home from the airport.
This is terrifying. I wonder how many of us chumps have escaped just in time to avoid being murdered.
The ex probably wouldn’t have killed me because I was having all kinds of crazy health problems. He knew something was wrong and was basically ignoring it. My oldest daughter even talked to him about it because she thought I was dying and he didn’t care. She still has PTSD. He was looking forward to his new life.
Turns out that the stress of living with emotional and verbal abuse for many years can cause health problems. Some of my stuff went away after I got divorced, but I have some permanent autoimmune disorders now.
During my divorce I read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker and took the threat assessment quiz on his website at mosaicmethod (dot) com
The questions on the threat assessment quiz showed me just how vulnerable I really was and how serious the threat was. In my opinion, cheating is just one part of the abuse spectrum. The ex had abused me verbally, emotionally, and spiritually over the years, and I eventually realized that he enjoyed abusing me. It was fun for him. Cheating was just a new flavor of abuse. And I still wonder if he would have eventually killed me.
Lizza Lee, that is one of my favorite books. One of the stories in it is a family that my younger sister babysat for. Never before reading that book, would I have realized how often our intuition is talking to us and how we allow our brains to overthink it.
You’re not alone in identifying cheating as part of the DV spectrum. When I did advocacy, I never met an abuse survivor who wasn’t also cheated on but it took many years before researchers and legal authorities started putting two and two together. It’s still not a common view but, as far as I’m concerned, if “10” is domestic murder and 8 and 9 are severe injury assault, cheating is about 6 or 7 on the DV scale. It makes perfect sense if you view DV, at root, as a protracted sex crime– basically just enforcement of sexual double standards (total sexual freedom for perps and none for victims).
The hypocritical possessiveness in cheating and dv isn’t always obvious because some abusers reportedly “mask” (from victims, bystanders and even themselves) the jealousy component in their abuse because jealousy is perceived as a contemptible weakness which doesn’t mesh with many abusers’ projected self images. Concealing an MO like this is something called “masked dependency” in domestic violence research. And rather than being less prone to jealous rages, those who try to conceal their dependency on partners are apparently statistically more prone to suddenly commit extreme or lethal violence if triggered.
By that token, I think the big mistake that investigators in the Scott Peterson and Chris Watts cases made was assuming the victims were killed simply to “get them out of the way” of an affair. According to the masked dependency model, the victims were more likely killed after suggesting or threatening separation in order to prevent victims from ever being able to move on and find future relationships. Also according to the masked dependency concept and proportionate to their level of pathological shame over their own dependency, it’s predictable that some domestic murderers (like Watts) would sooner risk greater punishment and admit to monetary or other heinous, cold-blooded motives rather than expose the dependency motive for murder.
Then according to the reactive attachment disorder model of battering (which masked dependency relates to), cheating would arguably be a given in domestic violence if an abuser experiences deep shame over their own infantile, pathological dependency on partners because one conceivable way of reducing this feeling of vulnerability is to hedge bets and attempt to “dilute” that dependency by spreading it out among more than one partner. One measure that the “diluting” strategy doesn’t really work is when cheaters– even those who appear to have “let go” and found new relationships– still continually circle back around to harass their former victims or attempt to kill them.
Anyway, I think cheating might not only be related to domestic violence but at the core of it.
Man, talk about discarding a spouse. That’s chilling.
Mine went on a tear and turned everyone in my life against me, including my therapist of 10 years and my landlord (resulting in her raising my rent without warning and saying “k, bye” when I told her that I couldn’t afford it).
I had to let my therapist go, because she was using our time together to explain things from my fuckwit’s perspective and chide me for asking fuckwit to honor the custody arrangement, because “Fuckwit has to set boundaries with you.” Not surprisingly, this therapist was really into Esther Perel. Amazing though that she saw my ex reaching out to her to shit talk me and was like “cool, this is normal behavior, let’s hear this person out.”
My landlord, who used to be a close friend, has stopped speaking to me and abruptly raised my rent. When I told her I couldn’t afford it, she was like, “ok, when can you be out?” She goes to fuckwit’s house for dinner on the regular. Fuckwit may be angling to get my apartment after I leave. So fucking gross.
Reading this article makes me wonder if fuckwit is capable of murder? Maybe. But that would leave fuckwit on the hook for taking care of our small child, and we can’t have that, can we.
It’s just truly amazing to me how it’s not enough for these people to betray us, rub the evidence in our faces, laugh about it, and leave us holding the baby. They actually want to DESTROY us. It makes no sense to me. I have nothing to this person, except fail to wash the salad forks to their satisfaction.
Your therapist seems highly unethical. Any thoughts of reporting her conduct to her state board?
No, I hadn’t considered it. What would I tell them? Isn’t my therapist allowed to talk to whoever she wants?
It might be helpful to read criminologist Donald Dutton’s book, “The Batterer” (in resources section of blog) for perspective and predicting next moves. One thing Dutton points out is that domestic abusers channel far more psychic energy into image management than average people which would make them especially good at orchestrating bully squads against their victims. If an abuser is relatively high functioning and not openly mentally deranged, you could probably measure degree of danger and capacity for violence and destruction according to the abuser’s success in deputizing proxy abusers and flying monkeys. The more the abuser has to lose by being exposed, the more committed they’ll be in isolating and discrediting their prey.
It may not seem like it now but not everyone is fooled by people like this. If there are domestic violence survivor groups or groups for survivors of coercive control in your area, I think you’d find support even if he hasn’t been murderously violent “yet.” DV survivors tend to list the kinds of psychological, financial and practical bullying and coercion you’re experiencing as the most debilitating aspects of domestic abuse even beyond violence. Getting support has increasing returns. As the feeling of being outnumbered fades, as your voice stops shaking and as you get more practiced in telling your story concisely, they more people will gather to your side and the more protection you’ll have. Stay safe.
Thanks. I’ve been trying to get out and start my life over in a new city, and I was wondering if I should check out DV resources. My prospects are extremely bleak otherwise. But Fuckwit wasn’t physically violent as a rule, so I’m not sure what I’d be able to ask for.
Draceana– Dutton’s book includes cases of “sub-violent” abuse. In general, domestic violence is increasingly defined in terms of psychological, emotional and financial abuse so you can ask for the same support and resources as anyone else. You qualify in spades. Back in the bad old days, overcrowded shelters often used to gate-keep by demanding victims make a compelling case of having been subjected to direct physical violence before being given safe harbor. But with the current spread of coercive control laws (https://www.theacecc.com/post/not-all-bills-are-created-equal-a-review-of-coercive-control-legislation) and understanding of how coercive control operates, that attitude probably isn’t as common. Fellow survivors certainly aren’t going to reject you because you don’t have enough broken bones. Most know that what you endured comprises some of the most damaging and paralyzing aspects of abuse even beyond violence.
Another great book is Dr. Evan Stark’s “Coercive Control.” As a veteran of the domestic violence shelter movement going back to the seventies, Stark is one of the main spearheads of the global campaign for coercive control legislation. The introduction to the book argues that if bystanders and legal authorities wait for violence as a cue to step in and help victims, it may already be too late.
Thanks for offering me a different perspective on this. I’ve been reading the books you suggested and realizing that the situation I’ve been in is likely much more dangerous than I previously realized.
However, when I tried to post on the Facebook support group about my situation and ask for ideas on how to further separate myself from my controlling ex, an admin deleted my post and told me (quite sarcastically, I thought) that my post was not approved because I wasn’t describing real abuse. So I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism that I will be taken seriously when I try to discuss my situation, even in a group like this one that prides itself on advocating for the chump.
Thanks again for the reading suggestions, they’re truly helpful.
When did you post on the FB page ? Tracy has recently taken back the reins because the admin was causing lots of problems, like your situation being dismissed.
p.s. If you can, look for groups that scoff at the “codependency theory” of domestic abuse. The ones that reject the coda psychobabble tend to be more energized, interesting, kickass and even funny. That doesn’t mean people can’t talk about previous or childhood trauma or ways in which previous trauma made it more difficult to escape abuse but it’s simply not viewed as the “reason” that abuse happens. Abuse happens because of abusers. It’s difficult to leave abusers because they retaliate in a million sneaky ways as you know firsthand.
My dentist is a very nice guy, but was going through divorce at the same time as me. We used to commiserate. His wife liked his paycheck but turned out she was cheating. He pick me danced for a couple years until his accountant pointed out what a drain she was and was secretly tapping into business accounts. A P.I. found she was still cheating so he finally divorced her. Nice cash settlement score for her. She also took his Corvette when she left for Seattle, a thousand miles away. Unfortunately for her she did not have title and it was not conveyed to her in the settlement. He had it reprocessed while she was at the gym. A couple years later she asked him if he would consider getting back together again. Apparently she blew through her dough.
The same week I filed for divorce, my lawyer had me sign a simple Will that left my half of everything to my children, should I die before the divorce is final. He said he started doing this after one of his clients died. Just one less incentive for my cheater to kill me. Shame and embarrassment are still a factor though.
Good for the attorney to do that. I spent $2700 with estate attorney restating my trust in 2019. Original was from 2004. It gave me peace of mind during slow divorce process. FW was certainly surprised to see “amended & restated“ when I signed documents for asset division, the children would’ve gotten my half not him and the Howorker.
That is a good idea. I immediately changed all my beneficiaries from work insurance, etc to go to my son; which I could legally do. The only thing he could have claimed had I died was any unpaid leave or salary I had outstanding, which wouldn’t have been much.
I rolled the dice.
I also talked to my grown son and told him not to let his dad schmooze him into giving him any money as he would use it for the whore. As it turned out he would have just gambled it away. But anyway, it didn’t happen.
Dr. Asshat used to slip me drugs into my drinks. I did wonder if he was going to end up trying to kill me. This could have easily have been me.
I found out in 2021 while getting my Covid shots, that Dr. Asshat used my name from 2007-2013 to obtain opiod drugs and he also used his brother’s credientials as well. I’m in the process of wanting the store chain (major Midwest company) to purge my record. I just found out today that they won’t, stating that “there is no evidence that my record is inaccurate”. I’m so frustrated. I don’t want to look like the drug addict, because I’m not.
I don’t know what to do other than report him to the medical board, but I’m sure he’ll use this against me with the kids. I’m so frustrated.
The state health insurance commissioner could look into it but would probably just brush it off as marital discord.
Surely your attorney knows someone who sues doctors and pharmacies, and can refer you?
How horrifying. I think of threats to child custody as acts of war. The FBI invites reports of healthcare fraud and prescription fraud. https://www.fbi.gov/video-repository/inside-the-fbi-health-care-fraud-111521.mp4/view
Today as always I am thankful to be free from x. I am so very sorry for that poor chump. Stories like this make me think There but for the grace of god go I. (X too was a health professional – one occasion at a remote location I alone of our family was violently ill. The kids were concerned. He was unconcerned and unsympathetic. I recall messaging friends on social media and they were concerned. At that time I was unaware he was cheating. )
The Daily Beast has quite the coverage. The dentist office workers acted on their suspicions, thank God. And discovered the poison and reported it to the hospital. This exchange is chilling:
“A short time later, Craig called his business partner and said he had “heard some disturbing information,” asking if the other man “had said anything to the hospital staff.”
He said he knew about the package, to which Craig replied it was “a ring for Angela and that he wanted to surprise her.” The business partner told Craig he knew it wasn’t a ring, and asked why he would buy potassium cyanide, according to the affidavit.
“James eventually recanted and admitted the package contained Potassium Cyanide but claimed that Angela asked him to order it,” the affidavit continues, stating that Craig claimed to his business partner that Angela had been suicidal.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dentist-james-toliver-craig-was-having-affair-as-he-poisoned-wife-to-death-cops-reveal
Any news on the identity of the cheating accomplice, the Texas orthodontist?
That is the other monster.
I don’t believe the cheating accomplices should get to hide or be protected. I believe they need to face the people they violate.
(If what they’re doing is so OK, why do they need to hide?)
Not to mention, in order to violate and abuse someone, you need to make them into an object or somehow erase their existence.
I have explained to Little Hammer, “You and I are not real to the people Dad cheated with. We have never met them, so it’s easier for them to deny our existence and violate us. They have only heard about us from him, and we know he is a liar. He wants to control the information and what they believe, and they want to believe what he has told them.”
They want to keep everyone from being in the same place at the same time to keep their fantasy alive.
Karin Cane – she’s now a public figure, per the below news piece.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11891783/amp/Texas-orthodontist-mistress-49-center-Colorado-dentist-murder-case-revealed.html
Here’s the affidavit: her name/info is found on pages 47 and 48
Affidavit: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23718101-23cr664-craig-james-toliver_redacted The AP’s name is redacted in a few places but left unredacted in others. I’m nor sure why everyone’s being careful not to mention the name since the source is now public but it starts with a “K” and is either pronounced like the name of the mythical ferryman of the river Styx or rhymes with “far in.”
Meant to say the affidavit has been released, not sure if I should link it. But it’s available
If you have concerns, the MOSAIC assessment (https://www.mosaicmethod.com/) is free and can help you put together different types of threats. My divorce attorney told me to do that and bring a copy of the results to what he called “a marital history” appointment. Later, when my ex told his own attorney that he knew how to kill me and get away with it, his attorney told mine as an officer of the court. Mine sent me to a domestic threat assessment specialist to get a detailed report that we could use for a protective order, but we ended up just focusing on getting the divorce settled because his attorney was also uneasy but willing to really work with mine to get it signed and done.
Sadly, the domestic threat assessment specialist was murdered about a year ago by her husband in a murder-suicide tragedy. I don’t know the backstory, but I really cried about that and made a donation in her name to a women’s shelter.
I also wanted to add, and you are smart women/ men so already know this, but I think it bears repeating. Domestic violence does not depend on your class or education or other magical thinking we, as humans do, tell ourselves to think we are safe. (I don’t do x like victim did, so what happened to victim can’t/won’t happen to me.).
I am a partner at a major law firm. Two of my female partners were killed by their longtime spouses. These were highly educated women with a lot of resources at their disposal. In both cases they were on the process of leaving. One had even brought her adult kids with her as a precaution while she was packing her things. Every person who knew them and had met their spouses at social events was shocked. You just don’t know what people will do.
Just a PSA in case anyone needs to see it.
After he left, a friend mentioned that she thought my ex was poisoning me as well. I had so many weird symptoms that couldn’t be diagnosed, hives daily for years, debilitating stomach pain. I remember mentioning it to his parents and the look on their faces was horror, but also agreement.
I was no contact with him at this point, and my symptoms cleared up shortly after. In the end I think my symptoms were my body rejecting a sociopath. Just to be safe though, I installed an alarm system.
Yeah, it was your body reacting to stress. If he were poisoning you, you would probably have died in a few weeks to months or ended up in Intensive care. You can survive years being poisoned.
Right before D-day, my back was killing me. FW, a physician, handed me a bunch of pills. I trusted him and didn’t question what they were 🤦🏻♀️. I slept until 3pm the next day. He called to see how I was. I said that I felt drugged. His response: “That’s because you were drugged.”
It’s chilling to think that he could have done me in and avoided the entire splitting of assets and affair shame. He could have made it look like a suicide, I think. I mean, I DID take the pills myself. Ugh.😳
That sounds sinister.
But muscle relaxers and opioids are very strong, so yeah technically you were! lol. Can laugh now because you are fine wasnt an overdose dosage. But yeah sounds sinister in hindsight. Good story!
I had read this terrible heart-wrenching story in yesterday’s Daily Mail. In that article I was so struck by the difference in the “happy smiling family man” photos and the “dead-eyed shark” pictured in the police mug shot. Terrifying, just terrifying. For me, he (not using his name) has done for dentists what John Wayne Gacy did for clowns…
Very sad. But dentist Bart Corbin murdered his girlfriend and his wife…
I recall the story of Autumn Klein a neurologist in Pittsburgh whose researcher husband killed her by adding cyanide to her workout supplements (I think they were capsules). This haunted me and I even got the book by the journalist who investigated the case.
She was 43, husband was 65 and had been her prof in med school when they met. He was divorced with sole custody of 2 teens he’d raised alone and their mother was just not in the picture. I believe that’s another huge story in itself, which is the part I relate with after my abusive cheater XH who later admitted to having wanted to kill me, tried hard to make me vanish after he abducted our little kids abroad. I feel lucky to be alive despite the rocky journey my kids and I have traveled.
Every single time I see a shared Facebook page, I wonder which one is the marriage police chump and which one is the cheating fuckwit.
Hahahahaha…. good one Tracy!
As a fellow healthcare provider, I am embarrassed by his sloppiness. Those poisons are easily detected. You would think someone in the medical field who is educated and has access to drugs would be stealth. Find something not traceable. Shame on hospital for not figuring it out at the first or even second visit. WTF?
I Read about psychopaths. Said they are usually not conscientious and organized and thats why they leave evidence, dont plan well and get caught. Ted Bundy they said was more organized and conscientious thats why he didnt get caught for a while.
Most cheaters dont kill. The ones that do are on the news so seems like more. They LOVE to have stuff on dentists especially, because everyone hates dentists and think they are sadists and like causing pain. I can assure everyone they dont. In fact dentists are better at pain control than other MD. Have you ever had a gyn do a procedure in the office. They give you nothing!
I don’t think we will ever know the stats on cheaters who kill. The only ones we see on TV are the ones who got caught. Some many years later.
I am convinced many cheaters kill, and most don’t get caught.
I agree Susie Lee. They may have feed something one is allergic to, caused a mechanical failure, or pushed one down the stairs
I’ve been watching the show “Evil Lives Here” lately and one of things I really appreciate about the show is that so many of the examples include cheating among the signs that the monsters represented are abusers and mass murderers.
So he killed his wife…who did he think was gonna raise 6 kids while he fucked Schmoopie?
That is likely what kept me alive…he realized I couldn’t tend the kids if I was dead…so he just gaslit me into oblivion. I hope that Schmoopie hates herself.
I think about this situation a lot. Although I don’t consider my ex-FW “capable” of murder, how do I really know? He did essentially go crazy after being backed into a corner trying to lead a double life. He was lying to me and also lying to the OW. He got so desperate to keep both lives going, was drinking way too much, and the OW was pressuring him for marriage (believing he was divorced because that’s what he told her), so he married her in Vegas while he was still married to me! Felony bigamy, much? I had no idea. I thought he was in Vegas with “the guys.” I even drove him to the airport and told him not to do anything “stupid” while he was there, as a joke. SMH. Anyway, given that anyone should know you can’t be married to two people at the same time (and he is a lawyer, to boot), he clearly had to be off his rocker to have gone to that extreme to get married to her rather than confess to one or both of us. Shortly after he married her, it finally became too much for him and he threatened suicide in front of the OW (who still had no idea he was already married), was taken to the hospital, and was involuntarily petitioned for mental health treatment. He was clearly out of his mind to ever think he could get away with marrying her and keep his double life going. Maybe I’m just lucky that he thought of killing himself instead of me during his “temporary insanity.” I’ll never know for sure. Gives me the shivers.
They really do develop a mental health disorder in order to create these double lives for their cheating. I wish it was recognised. I absolutely cannot wrap my head around how much my exhusband lied to everyone in his life in order to keep his double lives running. I don’t understand how he thought it was sustainable, and I don’t understand how he thought it would end. He was also telling everyone, including his AP, that him and I were getting divorced when we very much weren’t. I even found notes on his computer when snooping that he was planning on proposing to her – while still married to me! The delusion is so strong. I also can’t understand how friends/in laws can just accept what he did like it was okay, and they treat me like I’m a psycho for pointing out how sick he is. SMH.
The Daily Mail has photographs of Mistress Karin. (She called the cops on the photographer, and they shrugged and didn’t arrest anyone. lol) She is a mother of two, her kids are 19 and 21. Poor kids, having an idiot tramp like that for a mom. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11891783/Texas-orthodontist-mistress-49-center-Colorado-dentist-murder-case-revealed.html
I’m not able to copy/paste, but article includes her (OW) email to him (murderer) filled with self-pity and loss of centrality, faux sympathy for his children, vague references to “what has transpired”. Chilling peak into the mind of OWs.