Happy Tuesday! (aka The Day the Pain Stops)
This is an auspicious day to introduce Tell Me How You’re Mighty — a podcast about surviving infidelity and other hard stuff. Your hosts are me, Tracy Schorn (Chump Lady) and Sarah Gorrell, a BBC radio presenter and mighty single mother of four.
Sarah brings the dulcet tones. I bring the snark.
How can I listen?
Check out episodes wherever you find your podcasts — iTunes, Spotify, and elsewhere. An archive of episodes will also live here on the Chump Lady site at www.chumplady.com/mighty.
Oh and look! — I’ve embedded the first one below.
What’s this podcast business about?
It’s part of a larger plan of world domination to change the discourse about infidelity. And what a better way to do it than focus on the stories of mighty people who’ve overcome it and how they did it.
The first episodes outline the timeline of affairs — suspicion, D-Day, manipulation, reconciliation pressures, and leaving. In future episodes we’ll be talking with mental health professionals — and inspirational people who’ve lived this and gotten to the other side.
This introductory podcast is Sarah’s and my How We Met story. There was cream tea and Vera Lynn… I don’t want to give too much away.
How often will you podcast?
New episodes will appear twice a month, every other Tuesday. Unless you’re a Chump Nation Patreon subscriber, in which case, starting next episode you’ll get them a few days ahead of everyone else. (And you can ask us questions before anyone else too!)
How can I ask a question on your show?
Go to the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast page on this site (or via the home page menu) and you’ll see a widget to record your voice message to us. (Be succinct. You get 30 seconds.) Or you can email me or reach out on social media.
On each show we’ll have a segment to discuss listener questions and let our guests offer advice (and solidarity) as fellow chumps.
Do you have any ideas for future episodes, or recommendations for people you would like to see featured? Let us know in the comments — thanks!
Exciting! Congratulations! I suspect with more exposure, there will be plenty of criticism and maybe some talk shows to come. CN has your back. And I’m ready to poke the eyes out of anyone who is defending FWs (metaphorically speaking of course). Happy Tuesday! Now I’ll go have a listen to your podcast…
Just FYI, I’m still working out some kinks. The publishing platform shows it as published to iTunes, Spotify, etc. but I’m not finding it when I search. There may be a delay.
A podcaster just told me it takes about a week or less for the streaming services to pick up a podcast’s RSS feed. So, by next week you should see it. Thanks for your patience!
Love love love this! So happy that you are spreading the word! I have been a Patreon supporter since its inception and will always support you CL & CN!
You have a guaranteed subscribed listener to your podcast here and CN make sure that you leave 5 STAR reviews so that the podcast is noticed by other potential listeners. Good luck on this new venture CL❤️
Agreed!!! It’s amazing 🤩
Renee62,
Please tell us how and where to leave a review. That would be great 👍🏻
Please explain Patreon
Patreon is a way that Chump Nation can support Clump Lady.
The costs of running this blog are astronomical and never ending! Chump Lady pays for all the IT costs, hosting costs and huge fees for all the technical stuff. She does this out of her own pocket (and she HATES asking for financing help).
While totally optional, many of us feel like it is one small thing we can do to in return for all the time and wisdom she has given us.
Patreon let’s someone set up an automatic, monthly donation. There is no option for a one-time donation. There are suggested donation levels but you can enter any monthly amount you can manage.
It is a huge help towards keeping this site going and growing.
There is a Patreon button on the top of CL’s site.
❤️
Yessss! I’ve been patiently awaiting you taking over the world via podcast !!!! Can’t wait to listen and I am so grateful I had your book and blog post discovery of my ex husbands disgusting double life. Thank you !
Just here to show some love 💕
So amazing!
This is fantastic news!!! Congrats on this new chapter, Chump Lady. I’ll be listening.
Me too. Proud of you CL!
This is so brilliant!! Really looking forward to them. Please can we invite Shakira to join a podcast?
Wouldn’t that be a dream? Hey, Shakira, call me. LOL.
Congratulations! And please do a podcast or even a post on Tori and Dean and how their twu wuv exploded (or didn’t? this week he posted they’re divorcing but then deleted his ‘our children are our first priority’ post) after they blew up their original marriages. (They were soulmates, you see.)
What?! I spent many years snarking about those two. That’s definitely a column at least. But there’s also Andrew Tate going up on charges of human trafficking. So many FWs, so little time.
Love it! Thanks and congrats, Tracy! Great first guest, too.
Ha, that’s my co-host Sarah! She’s the pro. I bring the snark.
Oops! Apologies to Sarah. Great co-host, I meant to write! Can you tell I was doing homework while listening…? I just couldn’t wait.
YAY!!!! Congratulations!!! Cannot wait to listen!!! 💕
The poet Maggie Smith would make a great future podcast guest. She’s a Chump like all of us, and a Midwesterner like Tracy! Her new book, “You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir” is such an excellent chump-to-mighty story.
I was just listening to the audiobook of Goldenrod! ☺️
This is an amazing announcement! I don’t see it yet in Google podcasts, but hopefully it shows up soon so I can catch every new episode.
Congratulations! This is wonderful!
Congratulations on this new project! So, are you still keeping this blog while also doing podcasts? Or will you be slowly moving over to the new platform?
Yes, I blog 5 days a week. Podcasts are only twice a month. If they start paying for themselves, we hope to do it weekly.
🎉Whoop whoop🎉. Congratulations CL!
I suggest getting Dr. George Simon on and another with Dr. Ramani. Some other suggestions are more about specific topics such as tools in our healing tool box, trauma bonds, and how if victims have experienced a toxic relationship they are 90% greater chance of getting into another toxic relationship if they don’t fix their picker.
Great suggestions, Southern Chump!
Just listened. Fabulous! Can’t wait for the next.
Checking in from the dark ages…
I’ve never listened to a Pod Cast before… !
It was really great – I felt like I was in a room with girlfriends.
Thank you for this and everything CL! Xox
Chump Lady, your voice has been in my head since I discovered you 10 months ago, after being lied to, mindfucked, lovebombed again, blamed, and finally ditched for their (suspiciously suddenly copycat…) line manager. It’s lovely to hear your actual voice and put it to your immeasurably helpful words that remind me that cheating is ultimately abuse. 💜
Congrats! You should have that NYT “Spectacular Betrayal” loon on for an interview at some point.
Wonderful first podcast. Professional, warm, vulnerable, mighty!
Please cover when FWs have an affair and don’t get together with the AP. It’s awful to know that the FW has smashed up your marriage for nothing. Not because he/she fell in love with someone else, just because they were a FW.
Alice, this resonates. Sending hugs – this feels awful. I’m about a year out from learning that FW and Schmoopie broke up, and those first few months I remember being in a daze of grief very similar to the initial D-day feelings. I just kept looping in my head “he blew up our family, our entire life, all for nothing!”
What helped turn it around for be was a therapist who asked, “But would you go back? Knowing now who he really is, and the cruelty of which he’s capable, would you choose being married to him just to have an intact family, to go into retirement and golden years partnered to this man?” I had to conclude, that no, I wouldn’t.
What has worked for me is to start celebrating the tiniest things about my new life alone. It’s taken many, many months, and and first there were more bad days than good, but now I think I can say that it was a way of falling in love with myself. Of course there are lots of times I still believe that I’m not enough, but I think it’s gotten to a tipping point where the truths about me have tipped the scale from grieving my old life to appreciating the new one.
FW has become irrelevant. What he does or doesn’t do, who he is or isn’t in a relationship with – it’s all become as meaningless to me as if he was just someone I barely knew in high school.
I hope that you feel loved and supported by your circle of people IRL, and here in Chump Nation. We’re here alongside you to grieve over everything lost and to cheer you on to lovely new things.
On the flip side, it doesn’t help at all knowing he ‘fell in love’ with OW and she is now living your life, marriage and all.
I would rather it was for nothing (it would make it clear to me he was a FW galore). It’s awful both ways, and I can understand the viewpoint of all the loss for what? But all the loss so he can start over with younger schmoopie and her kids is a knife that turns in your back a different way.
It’s not better….
Oh and a bit more about childfree/childless chumps. It’s hard not having kids to motivate you to get on with life. We feel lost and like the marriage just never really existed. So pleased you are doing a podcast. It’s going to be so helpful.
An auspicious day indeed, congrats on your new podcast Tracy!! I just listened to it TWICE, and it is a perfectly amazing episode one!
Sarah sounds like an equally mighty force for good, loved her openness and vulnerable heart and the gift of sharing her painful story with us. You both sounded great.
How powerful this will be for new chumps navigating the chaos of it all and knowing they are not as alone as they might believe themselves to be.
And we old chumps never grow tired of having our feelings and thoughts revalidated again and again. Having your grief acknowledged and deeply understood by thousands of fellow chumps feels vital to healing.
The lack of awareness about the damage the abuse of infidelity causes out there in the spinning world can make you believe you are fully isolated and just imagining the severity of what happened to you. Then you look up in the sky and see Chump Lady fly in to save the day and it gives you the most needed blessing of all, hope for a better tomorrow.
Bravo on your first of many podcasts! I pray it reaches countless chumps out there and lets them know they aren’t crazy and they didn’t imagine any of what they see going on. It is real and it is full on abuse!
It’s a very big day for chump nation. Most proud to be an ongoing patreon supporter!
Great podcast.
I look forward to more.
The only thing I would say is there are a lot of good ideas here, but I would just be careful about the “fix your picker” part of it. Yes we need to get stronger, learn from our mistakes etc; but fix your picker not handled well can sound a lot like blame shifting.
Just my view.
Susie Lee, I’d love to engage CN in a conversation about this, either here, or at Chumpalooza. This is a very difficult facet of recovery for me in my post-traumatic growth. It’s what keeps me from even considering dating again. I’ve spent years in therapy, on this blog, writing, conversing, doing all this work to sort it all out, and to come to the understanding that it’s not my fault that FW cheated. But if I risk dating again, and meet someone who is so cleverly masked that not even an FBI profiler could spot them. and I decide to commit, and then they cheat, it’s because my picker is faulty?
I would do appreciate hearing everyone’s wisdom around this. Thanks for bringing it up.
Yes, there is a fine line to walk when we talk about ‘fix your picker’.
For me – I was married twice/ chumped twice. Both times there were red flags that I did not see as red flags (I was young and just not aware enough). Both men lied to me before marriage. Both men cheated on me at least once before marriage. Both men were sketchy in their dealings with people in general. I thought ‘forgiving’ and ‘being understanding’ were important to a relationship so I didn’t see these as deal breakers.
Now – armed with my new and improved ‘picker’, I hope to avoid at least some of these kinds of people in the future.
It wasn’t my fault that I was chumped… but I plan to do my best to avoid that in the future!
I’m with you! We share a similar story
I understand. For me I was 18 year old who married an 18 year old. Both of us almost 19. I am old as dirt, and it was fairly common at that time.
Are there things in his family that had I known or witnessed might give me pause? Lots of things, but I didn’t know about any of that until much later.
Putting that aside, he manipulated and conned so many other folks, I suspect he learned a lot of it from his dad. But the truth is some master con artists come from family’s who have raised several other decent folks.
Some folks are just simply hiding who they are for a long time, and of course they are constantly honing that skill. I assume it becomes part of the thrill.
I agree! Patriarchy, entitlement, personality disorders, social conditioning are other factors than just fix your picker. It took 6 years before my ex showed his true colours. My family & I were gobsmacked at how nasty & underhanded he turned out to be.
Yes! 2 ex’s who were deemed amazing by all. Both successful and still very loved by their kids, families and all. Both started out great….and then slowly but surely started to minimize me…and you know the rest. There were no glowing red flags. Many similarities between the 2….but the similarities are usually things considered positives.
I had no way of knowing there was a porn addiction with #1, and #2 was like a FW runaway Husband (see Vikki Stark).
She’d be a good guest by the way….and she doesn’t talk about pickers as far as I know.
Never mind that Jennifer Lopez got herself enmeshed with a royal FW, she once did a movie about a battered woman titled “Enough” that included some details about abuse that only people with experience would know about. It was so particular that I wondered if it was “passion project” for Lopez, as if she’d experienced something similar. First, the abuser doesn’t show a glimpse of his true colors until about six years in and then what prompts the dramatic shift is when the wife character comes across evidence of the abuser’s cheating. There have been other films on domestic abuse which show that delayed “penny drop” transition where the abuser’s mask falls but the only other film I can remember which even tangentially associated cheating with domestic abuse was the Tina Turner biopic.
My STBXH morphed over 32 years as his dark underground life grew…as he tip toed into phone hook ups,then porn, then emotional affairs, then on to the full life of sex with others. I was in the way of all his fantasies. So fixing my picker which had picked a sweet, quiet guy who loved me… turned into an unbalanced abuser. Drug addicts start out as sweet 3 year olds right? And people make terrible choices one after the other. I do believe many of us chumps see red flags in the drapes,on the table cloth and in the carpet and press on, ready for the challenge. But others of us never see the underworld until our relationships have weathered years of togetherness. No need to feel blamed unless the shoe fits. CL and CN need to keep bringing up topics and I’ll take what I need and leave the rest.
Great podcast launch! Loved every minute of it. The two of you are perfect together and it flowed beautifully. I’m looking forward to all the future episodes!
Congratulations. Can’t wait for the next one.
Just listened from the blog… so great!!! I’m so glad you’re doing this!!!
Just listened and love it! You have a great voice, so I completely understand why Sara thought you’d be a natural for the medium! You really are – I’m looking forward to subscribing and reviewing as soon as it hits!
Wow, that was amazing. CL’s and Sarah’s voices are like listening to music except no opera libretto was ever that cool or interesting (hey, there’s an idea: “CL, the Opera” with that famous ballad “Cheater Channel”). I also love the transatlantic vernacular.
Regarding the bit about APs, I have a curious perspective on the mentality of the “other man” because I basically lived with one. Probably because sleuthing MOs relates to the work I did for 15 years, I gave FW the third degree after D-Day and discovered FW had attempted (and failed) to have affairs with several married women from work before eventually having the full-blown affair with someone who’d been engaged at the time. It also came out after D-Day that, before I met him, his most intense pursuits of women in college were of those with boyfriends or fiances. FW had never mentioned these facts until asked and then he seemed dazed and confused about the relevance of it, like he’d never even considered he had a pattern or what it meant. But once that history was laid out, the whole thing was sooo Oedipal. I could go into all the evidence of this but the comment would end up being a novel. In short, his targets all resembled his mother in too many weird, specific ways to be accidental and, based on zero evidence, he seemed to always assume his “rivals” were toxic like his dad and deserved to be cheated on.
Maybe the overall fantasized goals might be different with “other men” where most “OMs” don’t seem to be thinking far beyond the bonky victory of the initial conquest and aren’t daydreaming about 4-ever-n’-ever and doodling imaginary wedding invitations like a lot of OWs. But I suspect there’s still the same demented sense of boosted self esteem if they can “win” by taking something away from a designated rival (on whom, again, they project some toxic parent figure) and the same sense that the existence of a rival confers greater value to the “object” that was “won.” True to the theory, FW started losing interest in the OW and circling back around to sniff at previous targets once she broke off her engagement in the hopes this would prompt him to dump his wife and kids.
Even with OWs, I get the feeling many are like dogs who’d have no idea what to do with the mail truck they’re chasing if they ever actually caught one but that projecting long term romantic goals is a way that some women react to societal strictures against being too “whorish.” If it “works out,” then they weren’t “fallen women” or something. The fact that an estimated 97% of affairs fizzle once marriages break up might be due to what one Youtube commenter said is a problem of “branding” (once someone participates in cheating, they’re forever branded as a “Walmart” product, not “Tiffany’s”) but it could also be the mail truck factor or what Velvet Hammer called the “three legged stool” effect where the thing can’t stand up once the chump leg is removed.
Maybe no one truly gets involved with affairs for the long term and they’re all just compulsively reenacting some freaky childhood trauma. That’s the closest I can get to feeling “pity” for witting affair participants– feeling sorry for the messed up kids they probably once were and being glad I’m not them. But then I channel any residual sympathy towards ensuring my children have better lives and role models.
Oh some do! At least some end up married soon after.
I know it happens. From the stories, it seems that even when affairs beat the statistical odds and end up in marriage, it’s often the worst punishment for co-cheaters. It seems to illustrate the “well, I caught the mail truck. Now what the eff do I do?” principle even more lol.
Ugh, we can hope….. Amazon FW and filler face OW look happy bragging…..
Lol, don’t buy it. Have you noticed the new social media selfie/corporate bio photo fashion is for people to frantically grin like someone’s jamming guns in their ribs and ordering them to smile? The uptick in manic fake happy makes me very nervous for the economy, human survival and the free world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFBFSCkRBTc
‘It’s part of a larger plan of world domination to change the discourse about infidelity’ We need that thank you. Please talk about the partners who just dump you for schmoopie and don’t even try to reconcile.
Please talk about their cheating partners and how YES, they too are scum buckets even though they ‘didn’t make a promise’ to you.
Yikes, that whole side dish rationalization really bugs me. So, if you’re not an official mandatory reporter, that means you’re morally justified in, say, watching a child being raped and doing nothing about it or even cheering it on? The logic boggles. To make the analogy literal, especially when there are kids involved in cheating, that whole “I wasn’t the one who made the commitment” alibi crumbles in a disgusting way. But even if kids weren’t in the picture, it’s bad enough to break the basic social contract and aid and abet someone else in committing domestic abuse. I see little difference between participating in cheating and inciting someone to physically assault their partner. And I’m saying that as someone who’s a survivor of violent assault.
From my experience, it’s all done in the same spirit. My alias comes from the fact that the AP– who’d never met me– repeatedly referred to me as “devil woman.” It’s sort of funny in retrospect but if that wasn’t deliberate incitement to abuse, I don’t know what is. She also bilked $40K from my kids’ college funds. Consequently, when it comes to apportioning culpability, I go by Spanish adage about side pieces: “Don’t hate the pig but the one who fed it.” By rights, most blame goes to the cheater but the co-cheater is still– to put it plainly– a pig.
I was just re-watching the series Mindhunters which is a somewhat fictionalized account of the early days of the FBI serial killer behavioral research program. At one point the agents/protagonists are interviewing some young guy who, as a teen, acted as a side kick for an older serial rapist and murderer. You really feel the burning irony as the accomplice keeps repeating some version of “But I never killed anyone.” In another interview, Charles Manson makes the same deflecting claims and points out that his followers did what they’d always wanted to do regardless of whether he’d ever met them and suggests that they might even have been dangerous towards him if he hadn’t supported what they were doing. He was partly lying about the intensity of his influence but clearly had a point that Manson family members already came geared with a capacity for misdirected rage and evil in their own rights.
Here’s an article on “murderers’ accomplices” describing categories of culpability that could easily apply to witting side pieces: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/202206/rethinking-the-murderers-accomplice
Please get that therapist? on who wrote the secret basement ….or whatever that was….
And any therapist who gets it right – so many don’t causing further harm.
Anyone qualified who studies happiness to speak to the blaming of chumps for FW’s lack of the happys.
Any grief expert who gets it, it’s like a death but with more horrible consequences.
Any expert who can speak to mom’s who glorify their sons and create little narcissists and then quickly embrace the OW.
Minwalla. He only seems to get half the equation. Neither he nor his counselors actually hold their clients accountable. Nor do they want to hear from the people who were abused by their clients. He is just another wreckoncilation, snake oil seller.
I didn’t know that about Minwalla. The pool is awful shallow as to whom is actually doing helpful chump work it sure seems. I did like his secret sexual basement paper though, but hell to the no if pushing the wreckonciliation mind F.👎
Dr Omar Minwalla would be a great recommendation for the podcast, Zip. 👍😊
Could also get Esther ‘Peril’, and we could all call in to tell her how much we appreciate her exuberant aliveness advice to cheaters!😬
“it’s like a death but with more horrible consequences.”
yes, bears repeating.
“Part of the larger plan for world domination”…yes! yes! And yes! Let’s give the RIC a run for its money. I love this CL. Thank you for your service.
What about Lundy B. He would be a fantastik! guest. Congrates on the accomplishment. Round of applause!
Anne Blythe, who has the podcast BTR( betrayal trauma recovery). She is very easy to listen to and does a good job running her podcast. She has an interview with Dr. Minwalla on her site that was really well done.
My Yankee Colonial self will use a favorite British word and declare the podcast BRILLIANT!!
The podcast was GREAT!
I left two messages for you. I can’t thank you enough.
This is an essential and long overdue part of the Chump recovery/ first aid kit and I am so thrilled it’s finally become a reality!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I just cannot believe this has not been done Before!! SO MANY CHUMPS but no voice.?Tracy is the voice and it sounds beautiful!! We must change the narrative and see the pattern of abuse and call it out. This POD cast is fantastic and your voices are music to so many ears. I listened like I was drowning and gasping for air!! This is it!! The POD CAST to hear. I sat in my attorneys office and signed my section today, and will await my STBXH signature and then the judge. I am 70. Can you be thrilled at 70 to end the 32 years together. H-YES!! Sadly, my first xH charmed and bullied his children so they prefer him to me. I did not win the sanity panel review. But even with this and being chumped 2x, I still rejoice and have amazement that no one will ever use me again or abuse me or make me dance or compete nor will I make the cheater smoothies, give him back rubs, plan get a ways,and be available or be scared to death getting STD checks. Those days are over. So for me, freedom was worth the price of getting my self esteem back. You are doing AMAZING things
CL and BBC host. Let’s keep the fire burning. Please do a TED talk too! We need that! Thank.you!!
Ok, time for a reality check, Tracy. I just listened to the podcast, and both Sarah AND you have dulcet tones.😁 You both sounded great, and you weren’t full of snark, but you did bring a potty-mouth, which was great, too.🤣
Very nicely done; both of you made me interested to hear what you were going to say next, so that’s what you want; people hanging on your words.
It’s been a long day for me, but it was great to hear this. Can’t wait to hear more. Thanks so much for doing this. Excellent idea and execution. Keep it going, please.😊
Congrats on becoming podcaster ! Another one of your skills, after writer, blogger, cartoonist and artist. Chump Nation is lucky you created this space in 2012.
Interviewee suggestion-Kwame Anthony Appiah from the Ethicist column in NY Times magazine section. Unlikely since he works there with contractual obligations but worth a try ?
I am so glad someone on TikTok advised a chump to find Chump Lady, I could not have needed this more right now. 25 years and three grown children, it is now finally over. Just like you explain, when you decide to forgive and try to rebuild, it doesn’t really work. The trust is gone, you know what he did, you know he kept on lying to you, playing your emotions while “showing his deep love and remorse”. No. He played the cards he knew would work.
I took him back 4,5 years ago. He’s been so loving and caring, talking about what an a**hole he was for hurting me and how he would spend the rest of his life making up for it.
Yeah. So 13 days ago I once again caught him cheating, with a young woman half his age, younger than our son.
I did say some words – honest words, no name calling except for pathetic old pig – then I left.
I’ve been struggling to breath every minute since, desperate screams building up inside of me. Longing, pining, struggling with a million thoughts and questions and feelings every minute of the day.
My logical brain know that I will be so much better off without him. My broken heart doesn’t listen to my logical brain. It’s been HELL.
But I’ve managed to not contact him, not answer his messages or calls, not check his SoMe.
Balancing on a really narrow edge.
Last night I found your blog. I honestly think this blog is what saves me.
He has never been worth it. Never. It was my fantasy image of him that made me feel otherwise.
I may be 55, but I still have a life to live. I’ve raised our children alone, I’ve done most of everything alone – he was always working, there’s really not much to miss about him.
I think the hard part is the sense of belonging with someone, that person having your back, comforting you when life is hard, protecting you when you feel vulnerable.
But the fact is – as long as he cheats, he’s the one I need protection from, he’s the one actually hurting me.
He’s the threat to my well being.
I am done.
And Chump Lady, you are the one saving me.
My heartfelt, sincere gratitude❤️