UBT: ‘I’m Flabbergasted by the Abuse Narrative You Created’

Dee,
First, I’m so sorry! As a Jew myself, it makes me sick when I see this. The FW I was married to was not Jewish but when everything went down, I went to Chabad for community and peace. I learned from one of the community that their sister had just dealt with a FW too … an ultra-religious cheater who abandoned his wife and kids. Even the Hassids can be FWs.

I just want to say that religious or not, have faith in your instincts and your experience. You know he’s a FW. And if he’s calling a woman his “work wife” I have little doubt that he was cheating physically —- especially since he so proudly says you’d never know because he’s “so smart.” He might as well have just shouted out “yep I cheated.”

As for your sister in law, you can ignore the letter. I got one that was equally abusive and shitty from FW’s mom. Or if you can’t bear to deal with her idiocy, you can state simply “Here’s the truth about your brother.” And list factually his abuses. Then tell her that she can believe what she wants but you won’t allow more gaslighting from him or his family. I’d probably go with no reply at all though… you can’t change the minds of FW flying monkeys.

I hope you got your get without further issue. And I’m glad you’re free of him. You are doing what matters for your girls.

Dee,

You can safely ignore the drivel written by your ex-SIL. She is either utterly appalled by her brother’s actions but wants to supress the truth because it is embarrassing to her and her wider family, or she’s fully bought into her brother’s “I did nothing wrong” BS narrative and is acting as a flying monkey on his behalf.

Fck her and fck her noise.

LFTT

I almost wrote a letter to my ex SIL when she was caught cheating with my brother’s business partner & after my brother moved out & filed for divorce. I felt she was family & was distraught by not only the bomb she dropped on my brother’s personal & professional life, but that she wasn’t what she pretended to be to the rest of us either. I’m glad I never wrote the letter. I saw her a couple years back & it was obvious that she could care less about me or my family. After a pause, I realized I didn’t care anymore either. Burn it, flush it, trash it or read it once in a while for a laugh, but don’t let it ruin your day or week.

I actually liked and enjoyed my three sisters in law. Two passed before my breakup and the third really turned fast. Of course, I robbed him of all his money. Lived like a queen on his money. Was bad wife. Bad mother. Bad bad bad. She was arms open to ow. (Now that he’s broken up with ow SIL must be flying high monkey or worse-staying friends to get dirt or spy for bro. She loves gossip). But I’ve never missed her crazy Petty jealousy for a minute. They always loved my presents and couldn’t wait to get them. I relieved not to have that chore anymore. They have no idea how cheap their shitty brother/uncle was. He had no prob showing up empty handed but taking credit for gifts? He was right there. Dinah, once you unload that whole family, you’ll feel so relieved and free. They think cutting you out will hurt you but when you don’t owe them anything – freedom. Do consider changing your place of worship if shunning occurs. Because fuck that shit.

I have never understood why people pretend to be perfect. It is so obvious that humans are prone to imperfection that no-one should believe it exists, but we strive to convince others anyway. My FOO had a few annual Christmas brag letter writer’s. This was long ago, before the days of Facebook and selfies. The letters were often hilarious to those of us who knew the family well. The version of reality presented in these letters was nothing like the reality of life in the FOO, but no one was ever confronted. It was considered impolite to point out truth in my FOO. I often felt like the child in the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Why was I the one who knew he was naked? Why was I shushed?

Many folks just cannot bear the truth being exposed to the public at large. They feel the whole family gets painted with the same brush which exposes the wrong doer. They close ranks and alter evidence. They issue “alternative realities.” My belief is when you come across this phenomenon you should try to avoid it, and don’t waste your time worrying about what these fools think or say about you. You will never convince them of the truth. It is a further waste of your time.

My parents tried very hard to force/mold each of their children into who they wanted them to be. It was an interesting experiment, but it failed miserably. Each of us went through some type of rebellion, and ended up being who we really were anyway. The awful legacy is the feeling you somehow disappointed your parents, that you were never “good enough” for them. Finally, I was able to learn that my self-evaluation and my determination of what made me happy was much more accurate. When I did what was acceptable to me, and discarded people who tried to enforce their “alternative realities” of my life, I was much happier.

The sister-in-law is threatening you with isolation and shame. I’m surprised she didn’t send a monogram for you to wear to identify yourself as an outcast to the public she is so afraid of. Be grateful that you no longer have to spend time with her, your Ex-FW, or the whole delusional family. Whether they know the truth, or not, if they choose to act like it does not exist, that is clearly their problem. You are free. Their disbelief is of no consequence to you. Get on with that gain a life portion of CL’s advice. You will find it much more satisfying!

Just because SIL refuses to believe the truth doesn’t mean it didn’t happen and sending angry, unhinged letters won’t change reality.

Aah.the pile on..kick a person when she is down..her poor Sadz brother. I’m guessing angry SIL thinks your story that is getting around temple reflects on her and the family ..the horrors! Appearances must be kept up you know! I bet if you talk to his colleagues, they would have stories to tell too. Divorce sucks! What sucks worse is Divorce because of infidelity. There are no winners in this scenario. It took me awhile to get to a place where I actually believe and feel that how people feel about me is none of my business. I do the best I can, try to live a life of integrity. Hugs! Be kind to yourself.🫂

It’s convenient when the trash takes itself out.

The best part of divorce:. Getting rid of the crazy ass in-laws! Well, at least a great bonus! Getting rid of a Lying Cheater is the best part, of course.

I guess I did get lucky in one respect. Ex-FW’s family has always been good to me and is still supportive of me after the divorce. I’m sure they love ex-FW, but they know who he is and what he did, and they act accordingly to me. I’m very thankful for that.

Dear Dinah,

CL is so right this all boils down to your exFW’s FOO issues. My ex in-laws sucked too and often demonstrated the hallmark of FOO issues– acting like the problem isn’t the problem but that talking about the problem is the problem.

But first off, many commendations for not only speaking your truth but apparently doing it in such a way that you garnered enough social support that it’s foiling your exFW’s and his family’s scheme to darken your name in the community. There they were, casually preparing to get ahead of the narrative with their poison gossip only to run into the brick wall of your social credibility. D’OH! Google “Professor Jennifer Freyd + DARVO” (deny, attack, reverse victim-offender): abuser coalitions always try to get ahead of victim narratives.

They also tend to be good at it because the behavior is passed down from one generation to the next and becomes pretty polished. It would be so tempting to write a response to this letter, mostly because the sister is clearly someone whose entire life is a tinder box and it would be easy to get into HER head. It’s surely not worth it but I strongly suspect there are some dark secrets lurking just under the surface of that family, something everyone’s been trained from birth to spackle to the point that spackling is the presumed norm and they’re “flabbergasted” that not everyone else in the world ignores flaming pink elephants. It would be too easy to blow the spackle off your ex-SIL’s frantic brain and leave the twisted creature convulsing in dissonance. She gave it away with “manipulated… even yourself to believe” and the thing about projected anger. Even after being married to the guy for 17 years, you may only know a fraction of that family’s dirt because of that typical toxic FOO rule of silence.

As they say, “every accusation from a narcissist [or insert appropriate personality disorder] is a confession.” ExSIL accused you of dementedly projecting which– as you probably already know but are likely just seeking confirmation on– is her own MO in a nutshell. Abusers don’t come out of a vacuum. Not everyone raised in abusive families becomes an abuser and some spend the rest of their lives combating bullying. Those are the true survivors. Those who didn’t emotionally survive childhood trauma are the ones who internalized abuse and then, like infected zombies, continue the family’s toxic tradition, which will nearly always include preemptive triangulation to discredit victims. But it’s not just abusive traditions which can be generationally honed but also defensive, anti-bullying strategies. I learned this from my father and one of his fellow GI Bill college friends, both of whom had managed to survive discrimination on the mean streets of NY and confrontations with military bullies without ever getting into physical fights. They were probably acting from necessity since they were both tall and extremely skinny when young and not built for brawling. They used what my dad jokingly called “two cent psychology” instead– automatically assuming that whatever bully they were dealing with came from a traumatic childhood and was projecting anger elsewhere. So when I was bullied by a suburban kid named Ted (silent “Bundy”) in fourth grade, my father instructed me to say, “Don’t pick on me just because your old man beats you up.” It was like a magic incantation and I’ll never forget that kid, who’d just leapt out a hedge to assault me, turning pale and bug-eyed and backing through the bushes from whence he came.

When I started working in a narc-filled, competitive and sometimes dangerous industry after college, I dealt with workplace assholes by preemptively plying them for dysfunctional family history. That’s surprisingly easy to do because would-be aggressors typically try to do exactly that to their prospective victims– dig around for Achilles heels. Sex pests and pick up artists especially seem to follow some secret operating manual saying that all women have “daddy issues” that can be used later to gaslight, invalidate and silence them. But my “daddy issue” was that my Dad had warned me about this kind of f*ckery so I’d turn the tables– get them confessing to childhood FOO dysfunction while I’d embellish my own story in the other direction, painting my “daddy” as very protective (true) and very rich and powerful (um, hah, not so much). This was before #MeToo when there were fewer protections against harassment or worse and the stories circling the industry were horrible.

Of course, being a basically empathic person, I’d never use the information against someone unless they became nasty. Preemptive weaponized intel gathering might seem like a really weird thing to do but my dad and his friend and their respective forebears had either survived potato famines or pogroms, poverty, gangland and military goons without internalizing the horror. The stakes were high and they weren’t playing around. They were formed by crucible and had some chops. In any case, when I’d reverse the plying, there was invariably something there. I mostly did this as a kind of personal anthropological study to “consider the source” and keep my sanity but, at one point, used what I dug up in a civil trial against a violent workplace harasser/stalker. Long story short, just as expected, when confronted on the stand about his own father’s violence, stalker-freak reverted to typical toxic family gag orders and perjured himself, was impeached by audiotape (Dad’s advice + new technology!) and that contributed to swaying the jury in my direction. My father’s two cent psychology turned out to be worth a quarter million and might very well have saved my life.

This brings me to the main point that, in order to really “stop the buck” of your FW’s FOO family psychodynamics, I’d recommend finding a balance between protecting your daughters from adult dramas and “inoculating” them with the basic facts (told in age-appropriate ways) about FW and his family– including any icky FOO history– because the FW family tradition will surely include typical relentless campaigns to turn your children against you.

For what it’s worth, my own personal method of kid-inoculation included dinner table discussions that abstractly dealt with things like criminal psych, gaslighting, triangulation, blameshifting, brainwashing and inculcation in historical, literary and political contexts. I actually started this simply because it was my own family tradition to prepare children to guard their integrity and combat bullying as adults (because anyone who tries to maintain integrity is going to be targeted at some point). My dad’s perspective came from a rugged experience but my mother’s family had applied the same thinking to organizational psych and business management. After D-Day, I merely continued the “tradition” but with the added awareness that it would probably foil any attempt by FW to blameshift. Beyond initally letting the kids know that dad had some fidelity issues, blew family assets on undeserving randos and his family had some
“sad,” icky secrets they didn’t deal with, I didn’t have to make the object lessons personal. By their tweens, my kids were all reading Primo Levi, and other political and historical tomes and novels focusing on victim-blaming and methods of cover up used by every breed of abuser in history. The kids were really into it because I’d employ another of my dad’s tactics– using a bit of humor to mock hypocrisy and liars and also to buffer the dark subject matter a bit without trivializing atrocity, interpersonal abuse or victims.

Now I sometimes feel like I’ve created social justice monsters because my sons are even more into cracking wise about political sex scandals than my daughter. I’d wince when, in mixed company, my middle son would start making Epstein island jokes. Yikes. But the kids are so cheerful and clear on everything that it hasn’t worked against them socially. They make awareness look irresistibly fun. Even my kids’ animation teacher was cracking up about a cartoon my son made about corrupt politicians collecting yachts and hookers. So when FW decided to be a FW, he was basically screwed if he had plans to sway the kids to his side. I didn’t plan it that way but, oops, it worked out. The kids quickly called FW on any bs behavior and he stood down. It was like some battle over who’s ancestral hand was going to rock the cradle of the next generation. My ancestors won, nyah nyah.

I have a dear friend who sort of overshot in trying protect her tween daughter from everything. I feel like she was probably faced with a bigger trap than I had to deal with because her ex is so extremely wealthy that my friend might have felt cornered into gearing her daughter for social life in exclusive “.01 percenter” private schools where all kids talk about is tennis, swag, country clubs, exotic vacations and TikTok. She might have tamped down her former activist mindset for fear of raising her daughter to be a misfit (something else I learned from my parents: advantages can sometimes become disadvantages). Now my friend has to whisper on the phone so her daughter doesn’t overhear anything personal and rat to my friend’s evil, controlling ex. My friend’s good intentions were turned into a liability and allowed her ex to get far ahead of the narrative. It breaks my heart but it made me less conflicted about having to at least fill my kids in on the basics about dad’s conduct. I didn’t start this war but, now that I’m in it, I don’t feel like losing it.

In the end, expect abusers to always campaign to control the story, sew divisions and deliberately undercut victims’ support system. You’re exSIL was stupid and sloppy enough to basically make an official announcement that this was the toxic clan plan. I’d recommend taking it as a heads up if your kids are forced into regular contact with that family and you’re not able to completely detach from the same social community for awhile. If you haven’t already, you could, if you wanted, start taking your kids to various social justice events, create reading lists, watch documentaries together on, say, third world sweat shop slavery, follow the news together and talk in age appropriate ways about political perverts and how sex often plays into abuse of power, etc., so that these themes are afloat. Kids naturally extrapolate the personal to the political and vice versa.