Am I Being Too Judgy with My Sister?
Her sister is having an affair — is she being too judgy about it? OP is a lot more upset since her own marriage broke up over infidelity. How thick are blood bonds when it comes to cheating?
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Dear Chump Lady,
About 5-6 years ago, my sister started “looking up” an old boyfriend from over 40 years ago.
That’s what she called it. I called it stalking. She couldn’t find him at first and just wouldn’t let it rest. She kept at it for over a year and finally found him.
But first, I think I need to give a little back story before I ask my question.
My sister had just come off a very rough “relationship” with a guy that was cheating on her and gave her an STD. She was very obsessive about this guy. Kept thinking he was cheating on her (he was), but made excuses for him and tolerated his abuse. He finally left her saying she was crazy. Not long after that, she was diagnosed with stage 3c ovarian cancer. She has survived the cancer, but it has spread. Now her life is in serious jeopardy, as there is no cure, only palliative treatment.
Back to the story of my sister becoming the Other Woman.
So, she found this guy and discovered he was married. “Fuck it, I want what I want”… she started an affair with him. He broke it off once. I guess because he was feeling guilty since his wife was a military veteran and terminally ill.
Obviously, this guy is no saint, but my sister bought every lie he told her. Like, he said his wife was flying to London on one last hoorah trip during the height of Covid, but then suddenly she was flying back early and my sister had to leave. (I think his wife was visiting family and wasn’t feeling well so cut her trip short.) Whatever, he was lying to her. When I questioned the London story, she got defensive, so I let it drop.
I didn’t say much at the start of her affair, other than, “Is he still married?”
And she just said, “we have our reasons and don’t want people to judge us.” Like you always say here, we can’t control others. I didn’t get into it with her, but I did consider telling the wife. My adult kids and husband told me I shouldn’t since she was terminal and might make things so much worse for her. But I really wanted to.
As a wife, I told my husband, I would be devastated and would still want to know! But he fought me on it. Now I know why he fought me so hard. But at the time, I just thought he was looking out for the wife in a sincere and sweet way. Little did I know he was looking at that through the lens of a cheater, who he would soon prove to be.
About 2 years into my sister’s affair, I found out my FW husband of 26.5 years had been having an affair.
Of course, my world was ripped out from underneath me and I had PTSD, was horribly traumatized by the discovery. But then I found that what my sister was doing was even more disgusting to me and I felt trapped between two horrible people having the same reprehensible behavior!
So I told my sister that I would not be engaging with her at all for about 6 months, and she was hurt, crying, but said “okay.” But when her cancer came back and spread (basically a death warrant) I caved and started talking to her again on a limited basis.
My therapist at the time (who turned out to be pretty crappy as time went on and I punted her) told me that she would like to live in a world where other people didn’t judge others. I responded that sometimes you have to judge other peoples behavior, that is why we have morals, ethics, laws, cops, courts, judges, etc. She and I continued to butt heads over this.
So, the wife did finally pass away, God rest her soul.
To make things worse than just my sister helping this shitty husband cheat on his wife, my sister went to her funeral! Yep! Even my crappy therapist was shocked by that one! She took pictures of this poor woman lying at rest! There was a table nearby with pictures of the couple, showing their original wedding and the vow renewal they did later in life! There were pictures of her kids and I wondered what they would think if they knew who my sister really was and that my sister had the gall to be there.
So guess what? Fast forward a year and a half, and this guy hasn’t asked her to marry him, or move to her town to be near her (they live 2.5 hours apart). He didn’t come visit her in the hospital when she got pneumonia, or got a sepsis recently and almost died. I didn’t even see in her hospital room that he sent flowers! But yet, she is still with him, seeing him once every 6-8 weeks.
My question:
Am I being too judgy with my sister?
I have my own moral compass and it is telling me all of her abhorrent behavior is wrong and that I just don’t want to be around her all that much. She may have her reasons for behaving like this, but I don’t think there is any excuse, not even cancer.
And I just don’t understand why she is willing to take a scant amount of crumbs from this A-hole! His wife is gone, so should I no longer pass judgment? I have refused to meet him or have him in my life, but if she is going to pass away sooner rather than later, should I be more tolerant and kind to her?
I do love her, and don’t want to be mean to her, but this is really hard to deal with, especially given what my own FW did to me.
What do you and Chump Nation think?
Thank you!
ChumpygirlKC (Judgy Sister)
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Dear ChumpygirlKC,
I think your sister has a deep and desperate need to have a man, any man.
And she thinks this dipshit is a prize. Because single status is worse than mistress status.
And when she hung on too long to the last dipshit and got dumped, she wrote her own “happy” (if delusional) ending. I’ll track down my old flame and MAKE HIM LOVE ME.
Because being whole on her own wasn’t a valid option. No, she requires the validation of dipshits.
So, she won the turd. And — no surprise here — he behaves like a turd.
I don’t think your sister cares. She’s got some main character syndrome dynamic going, where she’s the star. In her romantic fantasy, she’s the one Dipshit Really Loves. Going so far as to upstage a dead woman at her own funeral. (THE PICK ME DANCE NEVER DIES.)
If that wasn’t pathetic enough, she’s also got the sad fact that’s she’s dying of cancer. (Courtesy of dipshit #1.)
What can you do with such a person?
Nothing. God has imposed his own term limits on her stupidity and there’s not much time left. I wouldn’t spend it arguing with her about her life’s choices. She’s suffering justly (current dipshit’s tepid affections) and unjustly (cancer).
You judging her choices has zero impact on her. If the weight of natural consequences didn’t wake her up, your disapproval isn’t going to do diddlysquat either. Your judgement is for you.
I felt trapped between two horrible people having the same reprehensible behavior!
There’s your answer. Being around her makes you feel trapped with a horrible person. You’re allowed to honor that feeling by not being around her.
If that feels too harsh (we are chumpy people after all), you could decide to do superficial exchanges or group things with the rest of the family. My point is — you don’t have to invest deeply.
You left out a big part of this story, btw.
Where was she when you were cheated on?
As you’re contemplating how much you should be in your OW sister’s life as she’s dying, I’m curious how much she was in your life during the worst crisis of your life? Was she supportive? Did she avoid you because the cognitive dissonance of being a cheater was too much? Or because you’re just a bit player in her cosmic romance?
Healthy relationships are based on reciprocity. Has this person ever showed up for you?
That might feel like scorekeeping. But chumps are usually so accustomed to lopsided situations that I feel compelled to ask. If your sister is all about your sister, if she only wants to spend the remaining days she has left discussing her fucked up love rhombus with you, you can take a pass. That doesn’t make you a bad person.
The saddest thing about estrangements is the saddest thing about breakups in general — the death of potential. You could’ve been closer. This could’ve been better. If only… (she hadn’t made stupid, selfish choices). You love her, but… The woulda-coulda-shouldas are brutal.
So I told my sister that I would not be engaging with her at all for about 6 months, and she was hurt, crying, but said “okay.”
So, she made your grief all about her when you asked for a boundary?
Stop thinking in terms of “judgy sister.”
Think instead of “is this person available for a relationship?” From where I sit, the answer looks like no. She’s wrapped up in her dysfunctional romance and doesn’t have the bandwidth or interest in anyone else. If she has terminal cancer and can find the energy to drive 2.5 hours to a guy who can’t be bothered, she’s living her own punishment. She lost you and she wasted her life on FWs.
She’s a good example of a bad example. I’m sorry, it’s hard.
it sounds bonkers but are you sure she is dying of cancer? I actually know of someone who faked it. She sounds like a self-centered not so great sister, cancer or no. Agree with Tracy do some superficial group stuff if you must but don’t invest in her. If she’s truly dying then she cares more about the FW than about spending her remaining days with her sister, family, loved ones and repairing those relationships. The married guy is a low life FW and they do sound like they deserve each other. Sounds like the married boyfriend/FW #2 is dating others/cheating on your sister, which is why they’re not living together and he can barely give two shits about her.
Selfish sister’s basically now taken on the role formerly occupied by his dying wife! Terminally ill woman with a FW who’s cheating and just waiting for her to die. Karma bus is already here
Wow!!! This hits the 🎯too
Impending death is not a licence to behave like a shit, every birth is an eventual death, and we all have a responsibility to live our lives as ethically and with as much ntegrity as we can, right up to the end. Take CL’s advice. x
I’m confused. Is the letter writer still together with her cheating husband? It takes time and distance to come to terms with the pain of infidelity and the decision to define it as unacceptable behavior. When anyone tells us they don’t agree with our judgement (values), it is healthy to step away. Similarly, it is appropriate not to cover up a behavior they have “no problem” with.
“Is this person available for a relationship?” Yup, this is the heart of the matter and it applies across the board, from blood relatives to partners to friends. Otherwise it feels a lot like pick-me dancing.
Reciprocity is hard to.reach for as a guide…when we want to” HELP”
ChumpygirlKC, I’m so sorry you have to deal with such a toxic sister. The only current sickness that’s certain is the sickening self-absorption of attending the wife’s funeral and getting close enough to take pictures of her AP’s dead spouse. It smacks of the kind of trophy shots hunters take of their dead prey. Since you know there were nearby pictures of her wedding, vow renewal and kids, I wonder if she took and showed pictures of those, too. A few websites confirmed my belief that it’s disrespectful to take photos at a funeral, even of the casket, let alone the person in it. I wonder if she was wrangling a way to meet those kids, and perhaps set up the narrative that she attended out of respect to AP, and that’s how they crossed paths again. Was she there with hopes she could fake a meet cute over a corpse?
You wrote that her AP never came to the hospital for her pneumonia or sepsis, but you don’t mention surgery, chemo, radiation or any other treatment, so like Archer, I question if she actually has cancer, or if its actually stage 3c. That’s still treatable and the five YEAR survival rate is around 40% You set a six month boundary but caved because she told you it’s now a death warrant. If a doctor told her this, that usually means the doctor also said she has six months or less and to get hospice services as part of the palliative care you mentioned. Can you verify if she is getting care from a hospice agency? Qualifying for care usually requires verifying it’s terminal within 6 months by both the primary care and hospice MDs.
Since she used her diagnosis to justify breaking your six-month no contact boundary, it’s fair to ask for proof. She stalked a guy for a year and found him 2.5 hours away. I’m sure she can print out her most recent online medical report which lists an updated diagnosis. Hospice providers allow and encourage meetings with family members to discuss services and address patient and family wishes. If she’s truly terminal, you can still decide what amount of contact, if any, that you want to have with her. And if she’s lied, you have a clear answer that she’s manipulated you to get her cake and kibbles.
So sorry you have to make this decision. There are clear parallels to divorce.
Wait, what about LW’s cheater? I guess it’s been three years or so since D-Day, and I hope LW gained a life — away from that liar.
I also hope LW gained competent support. The therapist’s comment is extremely cruel. She wants to live in a world where no one judges anyone?!?! WTF? Don’t pay her bill. See if she judges that.
I’ve had 2 atrocious therapists, BOTH with PHDs. Some of these people are more disordered than any cheater if that’s possible. Both said my cheaters
Had Trauma issues and needed more sex etc..All the while they had guns and rage ..okayyyyyy….People always say I’m judging and I always answer back, ok do you leave your car unlocked 🔓 with your purse clearly visible in the front seat? Why are they so judgy???
And who takes a photo of someone in a coffin!? Seriously, is this a thing? And of someone you betrayed!??! What would anyone do with such a photo? Sorry, your sister is very much not right in the head.
This is something that was quite common in Victorian times, that is, taking photos of the dead. I’ve read about it. I don’t know if they took photos of people in their coffins.
That said, that’s definitely not common now, and I agree with the previous commenter who said it was disrespectful.
Needless to say, I felt very offended by my sister doing this, like it was to me almost, because I was betrayed by my FW too! Very offensive! I took it very personally and it wasn’t my husband. But it kind of was, in a way. My therapist wasn’t great, but she was also shocked and just said “It shows you how very ill she is.” Just like you said…
Yes it was a thing in my daughter in laws German farm family. But they all surrounded the casket and took last pictures all angles..JUST THE CLOSE FAMILY. People do this from Europe and here in the USA. I’ve seen these albums. Yes it is a think..but absolutely 💯 REPREHENSIBLE what this dying woman did. She would not be my friends and as a sister ..well I’d use a pot holder. Awful
Yeah, I think in the context you describe above, it’s okay. Some cultures, I guess that is okay. But in this context, NOT okay. She had no right to abuse this woman as being the OW and helping to betray her, but then to even go to her funeral? And then take pictures. I was so freaked out and offended by this, but I think what made it worse is that I now had my own cheating FW as well! This funeral was the time period I was not talking to her, but if I had been, I would have told her I found that to be wrong in EVERY way! I guess it was good I wasn’t talking to her, as I don’t think I would have held my tongue very well, if at all.
This was the lowest I have ever heard about. Very disturbing
Exactly. Even in cultures where it’s acceptable, it is close family, not random hos snapping pics for the gram or whatever the hell they’re going to use them for. My older family members have some of those albums too. but a stranger showing up and snapping pics would get bitch slapped immediately.
This alone would be reason enough to stay no contact with very disturbed sis.
When my mother passed during Covid I was recovering from surgery and could not attend the services. My sister took a photo of her at the wake, and sent it. It was a comfort to me. My first thought was “that’s not really her” and it was true in the sense that it drove home the point that she was not a body walking this earth. Her spirit animated her and made her who she really was. So, LW’s sister taking a picture of her…. rival?… conquest?… is sick, but not all photos at a funeral are the same.
Your case is definitely different and okay.
Agreed.
Further – if LW’s sister had taken a photo of the wronged wife even while she was alive that would be somewhat disturbing as well. Gad these FWs are something else.
Right? I don’t think Ive ever been to a funeral where the attendees took pictures. It’s a funeral, not a party. Wtf…
I’d literally start a fight if I saw someone taking a picture of one of my relatives in their coffin. I’d punch the bitch in the mouth before I asked a single question. It’s insane.
So revolting. Yuck.
I think the sister is absolute evil and being evil is a choice. I’m just blown away that she not only helped this man cheat on his sick wife, taking his time and energy away from the wife while she was ill and dying and needed it, but she also went to the funeral to take pictures of her corpse… I genuinely think the sister is evil. This rises to the level of psychopathic behavior.
As for the her crying because you couldn’t deal with her and her cheating when your marriage dissolved from cheating, I’m with chump lady. She made it all about her. I had two different people try to give me guilt trips while I was trying to deal with everything, and one of them was my sister. I remember thinking “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t supportive enough of you during my divorce and total destruction of my life! That must have been so difficult for you!” But I said nothing because what’s the point? People who think like that aren’t ever going to get it. They’ll always just twist it around to be about them.
I also think Archer made a good point. Do you know for sure that she has cancer? Because she sounds exactly like the type of person who would fake it. After going through all this and finding out horrifying things about those I genuinely believed were good people I’ve learned that when people show you who they are, trust them and know that reality is probably much, much worse than the ugliness they show you. She gleefully helps men cheat on dying women and then photographs their corpses as a trophy. That’s what we know and what she openly shares. There’s probably much, much worse that she hides. People like this should be avoided at all costs.
I made another comment for you all to see, but she definitely has cancer. I totally agree with everyone here in the community freaking out of her taking photos at the funeral, as I was freaked out by it too. But I also gave some background in my comment I just posted, about our abusive upbringing that I probably should have included with my letter to Tracy originally. It doesn’t make her choices okay, but I hesitate to consider her evil. But toxic and disordered, I definitely agree with those, as it is extremely unhealthy behavior and actions on her part. I am a messed up person from my childhood too, but I turned out “co-dependent” as my therapist like to say to which she made it seem that I had a role in my abuse all my life and my FW cheating on me? Will never figure that one out, but I did dump that therapist!
I am taken by the brazenness of it all. “Oh look, the other woman is dead, let me take a picture to commemorate!” THE HELL! Who does that? Wait. Fuckwits. Fuckwits do that! Kinda makes me wonder who will take the picture of HER in the box.
It sounds like about the correct amount of judgment if you ask me.
Let’s map it out:
-I am doing X behavior(participating in an affair, being “The Other Woman”, tacitly aiding in the abuse of A DYING PERSON)(I think even in the good mood I did not wake up in, this is where “incoming verbal sucker punch” is completely justified already.)
-You are afflicted with somebody doing the precise same behavior. I am watching your reality get rocked and destroyed by it.
-I elect to not only continue this behavior but continue to tell you about it-vicariously traumatizing you and demonstrating how ugly and thoughtless humanity really is.
And as our Fearless Leader pointed out:
-In the course of your healing and recovery I at best played no significant role, let alone re-evaluate my life choices, ask you your honest opinion, etc.
I think that pretty cleanly earns the good old fashioned “cold eye contact above the glasses with forehead inclined” at a minimum.
Basic symbolic logic follows-“if it is ok that I am doing it, it must sometimes be ok, therefore it is ok!”
Removing the romance and expanding our little equation here:
“You were abused and betrayed. I am participating in the abuse and betrayal of somebody else (who happens to be helpless and dying, bonus points there). My participation in this abuse and betrayal is acceptable as it makes me happy. Ergo, what happened to you can also be acceptable.”
(we can safely infer “my happiness justifies horrors.”)
Yeah no. Judge away. Not seeing a lot of evidence that she thinks that what happened to you was wrong or that she was there for you(wherein you are expected to be there for her through a series of bad decisions, and oh by the way she also has cancer.)
The fact that your sister has cancer and your sister is involved in cheating are unrelated. You can care for her in her time of weakness and still resent her role in somebody else’s abuse. As I told my personal fuckwit when we would fight: “I love you. Right now, I don’t like you.”
You need to be taking care of yourself. You already go through enough as a Chump-you are now watching a beloved (if aggravating) family member’s march to the grave. She is your sister after all (something about “blood and water”, forgive me-its early.) It must be awful to watch HER struggling with her own mortality (and that very “family” notion of “this idiot would do better if they used all of this for good instead of evil.”)
Also: I like our leader’s use of the phrase “score keeping.” I have been meditating upon that myself-what I realized that the ledger only seems to come flopping out on the table when the notion of equity has been jeopardized and “debt greater than” materializes. More accurately, “I have been good and this person has been awful lately.” Sounds like that is one of those triggered toward “making a decision about this person” but that’s just me.
Feliz Jueves!
Yeah, I was pretty freaked out by the “photo session” at the funeral. Just surreal to me. And of course, my thoughts went straight to – what if that had been me and my FW husband’s OW would have done that to me! OMG. Just NOT okay.
I want to recommend CGKC/Judgy Sister take an improv comedy class, see a lot of stand-up performances, read funny novels, cavort on a Mediterranean beach with some entertaining friends, anything cheerful, life-affirming or interesting to shake off the gloom and pall that’s been unfairly cast over her life by other people’s depressingly awful, destructive behavior.
That’s one thing that abusive individuals never seem to factor: the damage they do to the mental health of not only victims but people on the periphery of their abuse, the way they burden other people’s consciences, divide people over the moral quandary, cause dissonance and spread despair, discord and nihilism. Which is why the walking disasters around CGKC remind me of the Groke character from the Moomintrolls series that’s given Nordic children nightmares for generations.
As the story goes, the groaning, moaning Groke with its permanently bared teeth leaves a trail of ice in its wake, is followed by blizzards and, if it stands in one place too long, nothing can ever grow there again. On top of this, the Groke is a lonely and forlorn figure who seeks approval and warmth so others feel simultaneously terrified and pitying which, to me, is the most disturbing and intrusive combination of emotions.
I think it’s why the Groke character is so enduring– because what destructive, empathy-impaired type isn’t completely pathetic, tragic and depressing in the end? The director of the advocacy program I worked for in college even turned Groke into a verb: “Groking” is when abusive individuals– who invariably run themselves aground in some tragic way or other– throw their full dependent weight on others, causing that toxic and paralyzingly dissonant combination of fear and pity.
Many of the abusers that survivors dealt with would do this. After she divorced him, one survivor’s ex managed to use his disabling clinical depression and job loss to legally prevent her from kicking him out so he lived in a basement room under the stairs like gloom on a stick. Then in the network’s online support forum and in-person support groups, we’d occasionally get unsettling visits from abuser-Grokes who were trying to nestle in among victims because, as often happens, some had genuinely been out-sharked by bigger sharks and abused by bigger abusers and were seeking support.
People like this never admit right away that they’d committed abuse in their own rights but they eventually give themselves away because this type can never fully let go of the victim-blaming mentality by which they justified their own abuse. Bits and pieces of their backstories might leak out over time but mostly they would expose their true natures by gradually foisting their “split blame” views on other victims.
For example, if a survivor described an abuse experience, the abuser/victim hybrid would rhetorically ask the survivor questions which implied the survivor wasn’t completely innocent, might have done provocative or dysfunctional things, etc. They would also typically insist on the “psychological deficiency” theory of battered women and would have the temerity to argue with other survivors who claimed they didn’t come from dysfunctional backgrounds that caused them to be “attracted to abusers.” One female cop showed up at in-person meetings and would actually death-stare at anyone who contradicted this view. No, see, she’d learned that theory in police training and it was true of her (history of attraction to men she knew were violent, also admitted to having a parasocial crush on Ralph Fiennes’ Nazi character from Schindler’s List, shudder) therefore this had to be true of everyone else. We were all terrified of her and relieved when she eventually stopped showing up.
Sometimes these abuser/victim chimeras were in genuinely hard and pitiable straits but they did so much unnecessary damage to others and were so disruptive that they could not be helped. We’d have to throw up our hands and send them packing, though quite often people like this, if they can’t dominate and infect others with their Grokey toxic perspectives, will Rambo out in a hail of abuse as a parting shot and leave on their own.
But it’s easier to hit the ejector button if a toxic individual is openly aggressive and harder if they’re more covert. My college feminist lit professor used to talk about having to shut her suicidal sister out of her life because of how disruptive the latter was. The professor’s parents and entire family had put up with the 4am phone calls, the sister’s endless romantic disasters and unannounced drama intrusions for years but the last straw was when this sister dementedly attempted to poach this professor’s husband. After that this professor realized that her sister meant to take everyone out with her. She strictly limited any contact with this sister who eventually succeeded in killing herself.
She used to tear up when she told the story but the moral of it was very relevant to the course: warning students, especially women who are trained from birth to sacrifice themselves for others, not to “light themselves on fire to keep others warm.”
Later I read Friedman’s Fables– a sort of modern version of Aesop’s– and one story reminded me of the professor’s predicament. In The Bridge, a traveler crossing a bridge is approached by another who tells him to hang on tight to the end of a rope tied around the latter’s waist, at which point the second man flings himself off the bridge, leaving the traveler trapped as a counterweight, unable to pull the second man up. The second man keeps calling up to the traveler telling him to hold tight to keep him from falling to his death. The traveler realizes that his life as he knew it is over whether he sacrifices it to save this man or lets go and is haunted forever by the other’s death. So he gives a final ultimatum, instructing the other man to start climbing the rope to safety but, when he gets no response, he says “I accept your choice” and lets go of the rope.
Anyway, I think these are especially difficult choices for people who’s identities are based on ethics and empathy.
Thank you for this comment, it was very enlightening. You are right, I struggle with empathy, which is why I submitted this dilemma to Tracy and you all. And the ethics I have directly clash with my sister’s actions, which is why I struggle with it so much. But you all help me see more clearly!
Being a hopeless bleeding heart isn’t easy.
I am so not good at this, which is why my FW cheated on me so easily probably, but is this comment for me or my sister?
I think your sister made you a collateral victim of her behavior by burdening your conscience during her affair despite the fact she likely knew you were in the same boat as the wife she was betraying. Now she’s grasping at your loyalty to her which, in an ethical sense, demands that you betray yourself and your own children considering what your ex did to you.
No one who genuinely loved you (including recognizing how important ethics are to you) would do this. I think she’s asking you to light yourself on fire to keep her warm.
My comment was in recognition to how her behavior probably tore at your heartstrings which is a grossly unfair thing to do.
Oh yes, now that you say that it makes perfect sense when I think back on when it was all happening. I definitely felt that way and reacted that way, but didn’t know how to describe that feeling the way you just did so perfectly! Her behavior felt so personal to me, and it was her and her life, but still, what you just said totally explains why I felt that way. Thank you!
I think this became clearer to me after a former coworker of FW’s and the AP’s blew the whistle on the affair to me.
The first anonymous email I received from this “whistleblower” from an obviously dummy account simply contained time-stamped grainy cell phone photos of FW and the AP sitting glumly drinking in a seedy bar and then glumly entering what appeared to be a seedy apartment complex. The photos and the timing made it all clear as day what was happening. I immediately wrote back something like, “Thank you whoever you are for liberating me and my kids from gaslighting hell.”
By the fact there was no message with the photos other than the name of the AP, I think this individual must have feared getting “shot” as the bearer of bad news and anticipated a more negative response and demands for his identity, not being thanked for it. In any case, I got the sense he went against his better judgment and wrote a followup email. He admitted feeling “burdened” by having to witness these antics in a work environment and also being forced to contemplate the harm it might be causing innocent people, especially kids.
I replied with more thanks but he quickly responded saying that I shouldn’t thank him since he was also motivated by “selfish reasons.” He said that being made privy to the gossip swirling in the office about the affair increased the risk of being eventually subpoenaed in some related lawsuit which everyone dreaded and which is why no one wanted to go to HR. So his girlfriend recommended the remedy of tracking down the chump– me– and putting the ball in someone else’s court.
That made sense though I still got the feeling that he was largely motivated by feeling tainted and guilty by association but might not want to stress that angle because, in term of office politics, it probably looked worse to play the role of a meddling, moralizing “Karen” than to blow the whistle for pragmatic reasons. So I humored him a bit to hear more about these “pragmatic” reasons and get more intel in the process, which I did get because, as it turned out, he really did need to unburden himself.
What I gathered is that “Deep Throat” wasn’t alone in feeling affected by the affair. It seems gossip spread because some bystanders felt the affair created a negative work environment, partly because the AP ended up figuratively wearing FW’s (direct quote) “strap on dick” and thinking fucking a senior associate gave her the borrowed authority to boss around peers. But some also perceived the affair was like pouring blood in the water and emboldening every perv in the firm. Consequently, several people were concerned about being potentially subpoenaed in some future lawsuit related to the general shitstorm, either because someone might eventually report harassment or favoritism or because, given how generally sketchy she was, the AP might even try to play the #MeToo victim card.
It seems no one thought the AP was innocent in the affair (it wasn’t her first) but didn’t relish having to say as much and being made to look like victim-blamers and slut-shamers on public record in the wake of the Weinstein/Epstein/Aisles scandals. At the same time, it seems no one gave a crap about protecting FW either but, since they knew he had kids, they also didn’t want to be party to those kids losing financial support.
Frankly this sounded a lot like a moral quandary to me, not just selfish. But I think the general takeaway is that cheaters don’t just harm their direct victims but everyone in proximity even if it’s just subjecting everyone to a complicated mess of risky “what ifs” which anyone with a sense of career or social vulnerability– not to mention conscience– might find extremely stressful.
I was left feeling a little curious about whether this was a common experience among bystanders to this kind of fuckery and dug up some essays and research related to corporate HR which reported that bystanders to workplace extramarital affairs and/or affair between individuals of unequal status can often feel traumatized by the experience and unfairly caught within career-threatening or confounding ethical standoffs if they dare to express concerns.
Obviously work isn’t the only setting in which these dynamics can feel threatening and burdensome. Something else the whistleblower said struck me as hilarious and really apt: he said that people having affairs are like “toddlers peeing in the pool who think no one else sees the yellow plume” (or minds swimming in it).
It probably wouldn’t have been hard to figure out who this whistleblower was but I kept my promise to hire a PI to get the admissible proof in order to leave this guy out of it. Even if he had practical reasons for dropping the dime, the gesture cured me of feeling alone in bearing the shock and ugly burden and I’ll forever be grateful for it.
Just when I thought CL could not get any funnier and more on target 🎯, she tackles death and guilt. I must share that guilt, fear and cheaters dying were my greatest chumpiness. BUT WHAT IF THEY DIE? I’ll feel guilty FOREVER. Once again, the cheaters are free at death, at rest, at peace and I am left behind wringing my hands with the boundaries I had to set, the Nos I had to say and the stepping back taking on those consequences. I have not conquered this Chump nature entirely and am still stricken with my guilt over terminating husbands who cheated, Swiss friends, church people who meant well and all that. However, when I balance the lesser of the 2 evils, I always⚖️ lean to boundaries..I never had many, and to not having peace…. I have some peace NOW without them. Do I want chaos again? No!! So I’ll feel awful either way, but stronger with new boundaries. My tough therapist said Never apologize for your boundaries, never! So I go for that goal.
And yes I did tell my Divorce attorney brother- in- law, my sister was having an affair on him. And yes the manure hit the fan and spread in every direction, as brother- in -law filed and was vicious and my sister stopped talking to me for 6 months..but we are back now. She never told me about additional affairs and that is a good thing, I don’t want to know!! Thank you CL for tackling HARD subjects and speaking to our chumpy 💕 hearts on the real issues of death and cheating. Who else could do that with humor?
The only good thing I did get from my therapist was about boundaries, too. But as you can tell from my post, I still struggle with them, which is why I asked Tracy and you guys for help with this one.
Chumpygirlkc..No boundaries made for a long Chump experience..now I am.doing better but am an abrupt truth teller. My hope with practice is to be firm, kind yet unwavering. I am so used to backing down after my No..I melt under pressure. Being mean keeps the pushers away..now firmness and solid with no apologies is a new step for me. Hard work
You are right, such hard work, esp. for us chumps, which are loaded with empathy and trust. Tends to blow up in our face, it seems. Boundaries are something that takes lots of practice, I have found. Still practicing, as a matter of fact, but it does get easier with time.
“My therapist at the time (who turned out to be pretty crappy as time went on and I punted her) told me that she would like to live in a world where other people didn’t judge others.”
In my head: At which point I picked up her table lamp and threw it against the wall, and said “It’s an ugly corded lamp which throws weak light. It wasn’t working out for me. Don’t judge me.”
lol. good one! thanks for the laugh!
Since my lengthy response from hours ago didn’t go through, I’m writing a shorter version.
Chumpygirl, I’m sorry you have such a toxic sister. Taking photos of the deceased AP without family consent is sick. Did she want a trophy? She may have planned this to stage a phony meet cute scenario of how she met the father again, and get introduced to his family.
You mention hospitalizations for pneumonia and sepsis, but none for surgery, or other cancer treatment such as radiation or chemo which are often successful for stage 3c ovarian cancer. I, too, question her illness, since you gave her a six-month time out boundary and she stomped it claiming she’ll die withing 6 months. Stage 3 ovarian cancer has about a 40% survival rate for FIVE years.
You said she’s getting palliative care. If her treating or primary MD gave her a six month diagnosis, they would have referred her for hospice care, and the hospice MD would also verify. Hospice providers encourage family meetings to discuss treatment measures and patient and family wishes. Ask to meet with them. If she dodges, ask her to print out her most recent doctor visit notes listing all her current diagnoses. She managed to track down her AP who lives 2.5 hours away. I’m sure she can track down proof of her diagnosis. Even if she IS terminal, it’s still your choice whether to keep or cut your morally malignant sister.
This is so similar to cheaters who want their cake and kibbles. The saying “you can’t choose your family” is as valid as “marriage is forever.” You don’t have to stay with either one.
I think I caused confusion by not giving a more thorough timeline, sorry about that.
Let me try to clarify.
She has survived this cancer for almost 8-9 years now (I am super horrible with dates and times, etc). She was cancer free for about 5, but then it spread to her abdominal cavity (peritoneal carcinomatosis) in the last 4 years, which was the time frame that I had found out about my FW cheating on me. So all of this horrible stuff with her, her cancer and my ex-FW happened, someone very close to me that I loved tried to commit suicide – all at the same time, like this big bomb in my life going off!
She is still considered terminal, but has not been given a “you have this much time to live” or if she has, has not shared it with me. That was my mistake for not explaining better. She has had an additional 2 rounds of chemo on top of the original one she had after her hysterectomy. She is doing okay but the cancer is still lurking, not going away completely and will eventually end her life.
ChumpyGirlKC, that’s a lifetime load of stress in just a few years.
Since she’s gone through all this treatment, it seems that terminal in her case does mean that she’s used the available options, rather than as a statement of 6-month life expectancy.
I can’t add to all the excellent advice above, other than to ask yourself why you set a six-month boundary for no contact. It could be the desire to regain control, remove yourself from her toxicity, give yourself a breather from stress, enact some consequences on her
for cheating, punish her for mistreating you during your divorce, something different, or a combination. Once you know why you did it, ask yourself what you hoped to gain from it. Then you can decide if you want to go back to no contact and for how long. Or you can decide to go low contact, such as allowing x number of phone calls of x minute durations each week/month. You can tell your sister that you gave her a six month boundary, she broke it once, but now you are requiring x, and if she disrespects you again and breaks it, the consequence is cutting her off permanently.
It might help to think of her as a telemarketer trying to get you to give to the firefighting police orphan’s fund. The cause may or may not be legit, and you are not obligated to take calls.
And if you’re afraid you’ll feel guilty, consider it a gift in teaching her to respect boundaries, something she sorely lacks.
Then take care of yourself, CGKC, indulge in whatever you enjoy. You can put yourself first.
GoodFriend, Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate that. The last few years has seemed like walking through hell for me.
The 6 months wasn’t a planned period of reprieve, it just happened that way because her cancer came back and had spread to other areas of her body and organs, which put it in the terminal status, and I decided to talk to her again, because I didn’t think there would be much time left with her. However, she has way outlived the normal life expectancy so far, and that may continue for some time. And I am glad for that for her as I said before, I love her and don’t wish ill of her, but I just don’t approve of her behavior and don’t want to be “involved” with her in that aspect of her life. I did enforce the boundary, however, of her not being able to talk to me about “him” and that part of her life, which she tired to overstep several times, and I just reminded her I would not do it. I just held firm and told her “NO”, I won’t listen to it, talk about it, have him over, etc. She has since stopped trying to force it, but man it took a lot to get there. I mean, she has no respect for anyone’s boundaries, including her own, by letting her sparkly turd prize treat her like crap.
Thanks again for the well wishes!
Hey Chump Nation! Thank you all for your comments, they are always so helpful! And thanks to Tracy for posting this and giving me her thoughts as well, which is always immeasurable! I do feel relieved that I am not being a jerk in this case by protecting myself through distance and using selective visitation with my sister, as Tracy suggested.
I did want to assure you all that she in fact, does have cancer. I was with her when she was first diagnosed years ago, saw the scans, was there when she had her hysterectomy surgery, etc. It’s real, sad to say. Our mom died of cancer, so it makes me sad. But still, no excuse for bad behavior.
Also, we came from a very abuse home/childhood, and although this too doesn’t make bad behavior okay, it does give a better frame of reference, maybe? I don’t think she is evil, just coping with bad things that have happened to her in a very unhealthy way. And the funeral photos (and her just being there at all) is definitely unacceptable in every sense. I was taken aback by it, for sure. Her and I just turned out differently, I guess. I am not perfect by any means, but I do try not to harm other people. Some cheaters just think “what they don’t know, won’t hurt them,” I guess? I don’t know.
Anyway, I hope this answers some of your questions and makes things a little clearer. I should have included more of this before, just didn’t want the letter to Tracy to be too long so inadvertently left out some stuff that I probably should have included. Very sorry for any confusion!
What an awful situation for ChumpygirlKC to have to deal with. She has my sympathy.
I honestly don’t know what I would do.