Mighty People You Didn’t Know Were Chumped

Goodness me! Well, I missed Newcastle Australia bc such early chump days was focussed on keeping my kids afloat. Just three hours by ROAD at the time was quite impossible. Sheesh! Was that 2017?? Anyhoo. Despite the fact my passport expired long ago, this could well be my 2023 goal. There’s space now to renew passport, book plane tix and travel to other side of the world. I can’t even imagine being amidst ppl who just GET chumpdom. hurrah Chump Lady!!!

I’m so here for Chumpalooza. A room full of inspiring chumps? Count me in.

Shout out to my fellow chump aunt who, when my sister said “All I know is cheaters cheat because they’re unhappy” clapped back with “Don’t speak about what you don’t understand or I’ll show you what happens when I’m unhappy.”

Halle Berry, Emma Thompson, Gwen Stefani and one of my favorite college professors.

My experimental women’s lit professor talked frankly and unforgivingly every semester about her husband’s affair with a nurse in the same hospital where this professor was giving birth to their first child. She’d admit the event drove her to the brink of suicide but that, instead, she went back to school to get her masters and then went on to become a well known scholar and author. The story seemed to be an example of how women’s potentials are often sabotaged by sexualized abuse which was the theme and subtext of every novel we studied in her courses. Her classes overflowed with every type of person you can imagine– male, female, old, young, black, white, rich, working class, LGBT, punks, published writers and even a soloist from the NY Philharmonic. Everyone would end up completely electrified by the cohesiveness of her world view and position on civil rights and creative expression. It was like watching a revolution unfold. Yet, oddly, she had remained married to the same person for the rest of her life. She later wrote a book on the theme of adultery in history and literature which was very disappointing to me because the tone of the book was way more “adultery is no big deal and sometimes a rebellion against convention!” than what she conveyed in person.

It was like she shared her true views and feelings in the “privacy” of the lecture hall (right before camera phones became a thing so no evidence exists of her personal asides), but caved when it came to putting it all on public record. Maybe she wasn’t just reconciling her true position to make room for her husband’s abuse but also reconciling it to make room for a certain hypocritical sex-pozzy wave in feminism which reigned at the time (and seems to repeat itself every ten years). Maybe she softened her message as a political concession for cheating fellow scholars and literary figures. In any case, I thought the book was intellectual gibberish. It upset me and I realized how “contortionist” it is to try to reconcile any form of civil rights with minimizing any form of abuse. I wondered if the stress of straddling that contradiction contributed to her premature death.

But, at the same time, this professor’s courage in the classroom genuinely changed my life and gave me a clarity that probably saved my skin and sanity over and over. I started out as someone tragically easy to confuse and intimidate and ended up always coming down on the side of my gut instincts even if I initially hesitated. She also coached a lot of students– including me– through personal crises. She made me realize that real empathy is a superpower because it can make people visionary and prophetic which, on the flip side, means that lacking empathy is a qualitatively inferior state– an impairment or form of blindness. She wasn’t just a meddler haughtily foisting bad advice in exchange for guru status. Instead she would notice if you seemed “off” or distracted in a student meeting, would ask you what was going on, would listen intensely to what you were going through, get down in the dirt with you, become emotional in telling you about similar things she’d been through and would explain the hard lessons she’d learned. She gave so much of herself every semester that she had periodic breakdowns which might not seem terrible professional to some. But everything she predicted would happen if you did or didn’t do X or Y in response to some fraught situation would turn out to be true. She was the Green Mile guy, not a carnival act or cheap guru.

How could she be so right in most ways and so wrong in one? Feet of clay. I believed her mercilessly honest classroom self which was also reflected in the rest of her written work and literary analysis. Only the book on infidelity seemed to crap out and cave to pressure to not seem “bitter” or “uptight.” It represented a few dots she wasn’t able to connect in her otherwise spectacularly unified view. Since she was the first in her right-off-the-boat Catholic family to get a degree, maybe she has to be measured from the distance she leapt and not how she wobbled when landing. Sometimes real leaders might fail to walk the full walk in their personal lives but still inspire courage in others. I don’t think the one misstep or failure of courage reflected her essence or soul, which remain mighty.

I toured the Netherlands with a rugby club in the early 2000s. I was co captain of the team with another guy named Nick. We were both in our late 30s at the time. We won every game and Nick and I were given an award for Man Of the Match (MVP). 2 days after DDay Nick called me to tell me he had been through it as well. He said “it doesn’t matter how smart, rich, tough you are. It has nothing to do with you, it is them. She is gone get your ducks in a row and get out”.
Same day a vascular surgeon I worked with and we did couple things with told me he went through it with his previous wife. He said he was blindsided same way. He and his wife knew FW well. They are both chumps and weren’t surprised.
Both of these men are the last people I would have expected to be chumped.
God Bless them they have been with me every step of the way the last 22 months

Tori Spelling is a Scummy Schmoopie! You guys might not know of this Chump.. she was famous here in Canada – her name is Mary Jo Eustace and she was Chumped by Dean McDermott who is an actor some people may know of mainly on made-for-tv movies – he went to film something with Tori Spelling and in 2005 left Mary Jo and their son Jack to be with Tori Spelling – I always felt so bad for her but I just don’t buy Dean and Tori’s life as being very good – I actually think she had some kind of a reality show and it showed the reality of their shit-show life especially with his battle with drug and alcohol addiction

I don’t really know any people, famous or not, that I admire (ok, I knew about Emma Thompson, and I do admire her, but that’s obviously been discussed. Colin Firth I did not know about), and that I found out unexpectedly that they had been chumped.

However, reading all these posts has been inspiring.

Here’s to all the chumps who have gone on w/out the fuckwits in their lives to be mighty. Famous or not. It really doesn’t matter how beautiful you are, how rich you are, how smart you are, how successful you are, etc..

A fuckwit will find a way to devalue you and fuck you over. They really are energy vampires. And it really is so great to exist w/out them being around to bring you down. Makes me think of Tim Allen’s character’s (in the movie Galaxy Quest) signature line: Never give up, never surrender!

I’m really going to try to make it to Chumpalooza. It would be great to meet my fellow chumps from the blog, not to mention Tracy (and maybe Mr. CL too?). A crowd that understands where I’m at in my life (and vice versa).

P.S. I just thought of one person, not famous, that I found out was chumped after the FW XW chumped me. One of my dentist’s administrative assistants. When I was initially emotionally vomiting on any and all who would listen, she told me the man she thought was the love of her life (her first husband) left her for some schmoopie. She remarried, and seems very happy. Her name? Glynda. I don’t think she’s a good witch, but I do think she’s a good person. And mighty.

P.P.S. I did not know about Madeline Albright being a chump! What an asshole her FW XH must have been. That this woman could be so heartbroken at 60 years old by his actions, and still went on to be so mighty, is a beacon of light to all of us other chumps.

Some comments and replies I woke up with from Substack users for CN and the UBT to gnaw on. I’m very sorry it’s not Lebkuchen!:

Aly Drummond, “Seasonal Womanhood”:

“Being a public figure in an age-gap marriage has taught me the following about modern women: They do not believe in true love. Most single women can understand and justify psychologically a man loving an obese woman, yet they cannot do the same for a young woman loving an older man. This tells you all you need to know about delusional female daters. Their love is fickle as it is based on preferences and not values. This is why they remain single.”

Sasha Latypova, “Due Dilligence in Art” queries:

“Have you ever seen a young woman loving a much older POOR man? e.g. age gap 20+ years?”

Aly responds:

“Many men date obese women even though that is a noted health deficiency. An older man not financially established speaks to another deficiency the majority of women would not accept, as he would stick out like a sore thumb. It screams incapable. Poor older men are less valuable than obese women. Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap. Love is real, but logistics cannot be ignored in consideration of reproduction.”

Jaine Benson, “Jaine’s Newsletter” chimes in:

“I did but then I believe in reincarnation and we are in the age of revelation so we are finding people we loved in past lives but now they are to be found in varying ages and I do believe that is the foundation of the true homosexual movement, (not the agenda based one). Some people recall loving someone before. It happened to me in France. Olivier. I knew how I died when we had loved each other and now he was easily 20 yrs older. I will always love him!! And J Pierre. We drove past Saumur on a back road and I KNEW I had been lost with him before. What joy to get to meet people you once and still do love in your soul.”

“Scott”, a lurker with nothing to say, has this to say:

“Oh how so many are deceived by the father of all lies. You get one chance as a soul even tho your vessel contains reused cells. Just because each cell may have been part of a previous life doesn’t mean your soul has. Too many confuse cell memory with reincarnation. As usual these are people unhappy with their lives and choices they have made so what better way to ignore the sins they commit. These are lessons and blah blah blah. The men on the cross did not ask Jesus if they can be reborn as better people on earth again but to save them a place in heaven with the father. As usual eve is tricked by her lust for power. In general men understand how to wield power in a just manner. If you don’t believe that then we would live in a society like animals that basically mate without morals. Rape would be rampant as well as murder. We don’t have any female run societies for a reason, they can’t even get along with their own sex due to competition. Men the hunters are able to resolve differences and work together to achieve larger goals aka sacrifice for the betterment of family and tribe. So much talk about divine masculine and feminine yet only being is divine. We are mere creations of his love for us, as usual satan plays on that other sin, pride. When women make up 90% of the divorce rate these days it’s clear which side is following the wrong path.”

Sasha’s question wasn’t answered and she’s entitled to one immediately because she’s a failed artist:

“My question was about marriage/girlfriend-boyfriend relationship. I have never seen or heard of a woman 20 yrs younger in a relationship with a guy who is broke and she has to keep a job to support him and eventually has to be a nurse and change his diapers. Not to say it can never happen, but just not the pattern overall. The younger women love older men of certain wealth and social status 99% of the time.”

And G. Michael Vasey, “The Magical World of G. Michael Vasey” to round things out:

“Indeed I have. It happens often and your comment reflects poorly on you and your views of women… and men. In some cultures and nations, it is the way things are and have been.”

Well, I’m a 55 year old man, 30 plus years chumped, and, while not “poor”, I am unemployed/retired (which is what I think they’re talking about, not destitution), but I am not a cheater and I’m very invested in my health and wellness and I take care of myself. I would like to be with at least a slightly younger woman, not to work and pay for everything and change my diapers, but because I do not want to risk being with another Boomer narcissist.

“An older man not financially established…would stick out like a sore thumb…screams incapable…Poor older men are less valuable than obese women…Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap…”

Yuck

Yes!! I love Jax! She is indeed in the chump club. In her song “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” her lyrics are “I loved a kid from Hollywood but he cheated on me ‘cause he could, and I went full Carrie Underwood on him.”