Cheater Thinks He’s a Feminist Ally
Her cheater husband pretends to be a feminist ally. He publicly praises women’s professional accomplishments, and scolds men to be more supportive. Meanwhile, he sleeps with his coworkers.
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Dear Chump Lady,
Today, my FW appeared in the local newspapers, quoted as a token male in an article about women in science, their difficulties, and how men should be allies.
I nearly died laughing.
FW and I got married when we were in our early twenties, and have been married for 25 years. I discovered inappropriate chats between him and a colleague (also a university junior) about 2 years after we got married. He professed remorse; I was young and idealistic (and naive), and also thought I wanted to be a good Christian wife. We got back together, and for a couple of years, went overseas to work and study, then returned to our home country.
Soon after, I became pregnant with our first kid. Between having our first daughter, two miscarriages and then our second daughter, he embarked on a thriving career that involved a lot of travel for work.
After our second daughter (an oops-baby) was born, I discovered that he had had an affair with someone that he interviewed for a role in his company but in another country – she didn’t get the job but he stayed in touch with her, eventually having a two-year affair that resulted in an affair daughter (also an oops-baby).
He is no longer in contact with AP and affair child.
I’ve struggled with depression (with suicidal ideation) and anxiety for most of my life, and I regret that I wasn’t in an emotional state to divorce him then. He seemed incredibly repentant and remorseful, and we spent a fortune on couples therapy. I thought that things were good.
Covid and lockdown came, and I thought we were really in a good place. I actually enjoyed lockdown because our family grew so much closer. But once borders reopened and travel returned, he started acting suspicious again. I hired an investigator and discovered that he had once again returned to his philandering ways.
I’ve discovered three Schmoopies since then.
Each time I confronted them, and each time I realized that they were not the problem – he was.
He had presented a front of being a miserable divorcé, or that his wife was mentally unstable which is why he couldn’t leave her – story after story that was everything but the truth.
I can’t divorce FW because of various complicated reasons (including that I co-own property with my parents that he could claim as part of marital assets, and also the divorce laws in my country are financially disadvantageous for me during asset division). But he won’t move out. Current Schmoopie (fourth since Covid) probably has no idea that he still comes home every night, and I can’t be bothered to figure out who she is, but he’s been spotted in public with her by friends.
Honestly, it’s not their fault. He’s been hoodwinking them — as well and me and my girls — the whole time.
This was a man who cheated on me repeatedly while I gave up 10 years of my career to raise his children while his own career flourished.
I was depressed to the point of suicide because of his shenanigans. I took him back, had another child with him, and still he wandered off. My therapist has theorized that he’s a narcissistic sensation seeker.
I don’t want him anymore. I’m not doing the pick-me dance. I am focusing on my personal well-being, my kids and my career. But I am gobsmacked. How can someone like this, who has philandered, lied and cheated to numerous women (his wife, his daughters, his APs) still profess to be a feminist ally for women in the workplace?
What the hell is going through his FW mind??
Confused Cat Mom
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Dear Confused Cat Mom
Forget his mind. What’s going on with your mind and why are you still with him? Have you consulted an attorney?
Honestly, however disadvantageous your divorce situation, it would not be as bad as your current state — wishing yourself dead.
The guy is a fraud. He’s hurting you and modeling terrible things to your daughters. I really want him out of your life. Not you out of your life.
Chump Lady
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Dear Chump Lady,
Yes, I have consulted three attorneys. My name is on the deed for my parents’ retirement home that they saved their whole lives for and is considered part of marital assets. I live in the same house as FW because he won’t leave, and I don’t have the legal right to ask him to leave as we own the property 50/50. And I live in one of the most crowded and expensive cities in the world, with high rent, and I can’t afford to move out on my own with the kids.
I no longer wish myself dead! I’m doing well after many years of therapy and DGAF about the marriage anymore. I have a job I love (not very high paying but emotionally very fruitful), I have a great relationship with my kids and a good friend/family/church network.
I just sometimes wonder what is going on in that stupid head of his.
Confused Cat Mom
***
Dear Confused Cat Mom,
We’ll get to why your cheater likes to pretend he’s a feminist ally in a moment. (Short answer: Because it works.) Let’s focus instead on the peril you’re in remaining married to a FW with flagrant other lives.
He could leave you and force the sale of those assets. He could have (or create) debts you’re responsible for. That affair partner who went away with her child and left you alone could circle back and demand child support. (As well she should.)
My point is:
It’s crazy dangerous to stay in your current situation.
Part of being in an abusive relationship is convincing yourself that it’s not that bad. To stay with a FW is to become a wizard in the dark spackle arts. You believe you can manage his chaos. Or you convince yourself He Would Never.
- Move money.
- Leave you first.
- Hurt you physically.
Yes, he could. Ask a few gazillion of us how we know. My point is, your situation is not stable and you need some contingency plans. I’m not a lawyer who can dispense legal advice, I’m a lady with a blog — but if it were me, I’d have my parents get me off their lease ASAP. And if your husband had a problem with that, I’d say: “I’m sure Human Resources has a problem with you fucking your coworkers.”
Leverage. Talk to your lawyers about deposing workplace affair partners. I hear it gets settlement talks moving.
And I live in one of the most crowded and expensive cities in the world, with high rent, and I can’t afford to move out on my own with the kids.
Nobody divorces without taking a substantive financial hit.
But you could be forced to take that hit and not be in control (in the scenarios I outlined.) Many of us took the hit and never recovered financially and are still grateful for the peace and sanity. Others do recover and prosper after leaving cheaters. Consider the unimaginable. Living in a different city or with a friend, or moving in with your parents. It’s not forever. It’s until you figure out what next.
My point is: you have choices. I know you think these choices suck, but it’s better than living day after day with a man who continually devalues you.
I don’t want him anymore.
Bullshit.
You still care.
If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be trying to untangle his skein writing to me. You want to know what he’s thinking, why he’s this way, what flavor of narcissist he is. WHO CARES? HE IS HURTING YOU!
I am focusing on my personal well-being, my kids and my career.
Great, but this is like building a tower of blocks with a Baby Man who just wants to knock them over.
You’re trying to compartmentalize yourself like a cheater. Okay, I don’t want to be in an open marriage with a man who tells everyone I’m insane, but I’ll pretend that OTHER THAN THAT everything is fine. It’s not fine. It’s destabilizing. It’s eating a giant bowl of cognitive dissonance for breakfast every morning.
The stress of this nearly killed you. You wished yourself dead. I’m glad your mental health has improved, but that’s like getting food poisoning and playing Russian roulette each day at the salmonella salad bar.
Enough with the metaphors, Tracy! Why is he a FW?
Sigh. Okay, I’ll answer the question you asked and shut up about the advice you don’t want to hear.
Why does your cheater pretend to be a feminist ally?
Because it works. If he thought being a jelly donut would get him laid, he’d dust himself with powdered sugar.
He’s no more a feminist than he is a jelly donut. It’s just a disguise he wears to get the things he wants. If clubbing women and dragging them by the hair back to his cave worked (and in the current political zeitgeist, it’s probably does), he’d do that. It’s just that his happy hunting grounds are universities and scientific workplaces, so he has to pretend to be evolved to lure that prey.
He’s not that deep. That’s the answer to every WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS FW question.
How can someone like this, who has philandered, lied and cheated to numerous women (his wife, his daughters, his APs) still profess to be a feminist ally for women in the workplace?
How can he be a hypocrite? Girlfriend, how can he fake remorse? How can he financially abandon a CHILD? How can he let you support his career and reward that investment by CHEATING ON YOU?
Because he is a terrible person.
I thought we were really in a good place. I actually enjoyed lockdown because our family grew so much closer.
Put down the hopium. He never had a character transplant. It was so wonderful that you hired a private investigator.
discovered that he had once again returned to his philandering ways.
He never left them.
I’m sensing a lot of bargaining stage of grief here. He’s not a unicorn. But okay, you’ll live like roommates! A show of hands, CN, on how that worked out. He’s not, and never will be, a benign roommate. He’s a man who hurts you because he can.
I just sometimes wonder what is going on in that stupid head of his.
“She lets me.”
Cat Mom,
I’ve been where you are, in that stage of “I don’t want to be married to him, but I can’t afford to leave,” rationalizing why I couldn’t leave when I should have been strategizing how to leave. All that “Why is he like this?” and “How can he do this to me?”, wasting my emotional energy on anger over his deceptive public persona as a feminist ally while he creeped on his younger women colleagues.
Chump Lady would have been right to tell me I was still addicted to hopium. And in my case, the hopium addiction was fueled by my fears about whether I could face the future by myself and live alone, fears I refused to admit to myself I had, because in other areas of my life I was independent and even courageous.
You must at some level understand that your own rationalizations are just that, or you wouldn’t have written to Chump Lady, whose tagline is, after all, “LEAVE a cheater….”
Why not visit a lawyer or your financial advisor and say, “I want a divorce and I need you to help me strategize how to do so to protect my assets.” Maybe you can put your parents’ home into a family trust that he can’t touch. Maybe a forensic accountant could help you can recover marital funds your spouse spent on those cheating trips he took. And as Chump Lady says, maybe you and your parents could work out a joint housing situation, which might include buying a property together with your settlement.
Not sure what country you live in but there must be a means of getting your name off your parents property without hurting them. Most of us have figured out ways to leave a FW even with a lack of resources. My exFW tried his best to make me destitute but now he tells everyone who will listen that I took him to the cleaners!!🤣🤣🤣
Since getting rid of the FW, I have been able to pay off my house, do some remodeling, take vacations and finally retire!!!! Once you dig into the financials, you will find that they drain joint money like crazy. I got all that back in my settlement. I am sure Schmoopie was sad that he ended up less wealthy than she thought (he loved buying useless stuff for her and a bevy of side Schmoopies).
You just need to make the most important decisions as to whether you want to continue to live your life as you are now.
Yeah, like possibly she could sell her parents her share for the equivalent currency to a dollar where she lives. Then they sell it back to her for the same price after the divorce is final. There are certainly tricks you can pull to keep a FW from getting your property.
Catmom needs a lawyer’s help.
In the modern world, there is no such thing as a feminist adulterer.
A feminist is someone who believes in freedom and choice for all human beings, female and male.
An adulterer is someone who takes away another person’s sexual right to choose monogamy and freedom from STDs.
I don’t care if you march at rallies, wear pink p**** hats, vote for feminist causes, donate to the right organizations, or make award-winning feminist television shows and movies. Adulterers—both adulterous spouses and knoeing affair partners—are hypocrites and fake feminists. They’re only feminists from the waist up.
(Read Kai Cole’s essay on her ex-husband Joss Whedon’s adultery. She gets it.)
Kai’s letter should be required reading for chumps. Not only does she get it, it seems that cheater Joss explained his behavior and motivations clearly.
According to Kai’s letter, Joss told her, “As a guilty man I knew the only way to hide was to act as though I were righteous.”
He also reportedly told her, “It’s not just like I killed you, but that I’d done it subtly, over years. That I’d been poisoning you. Chipping away at you.”
She also wrote that when he left the marriage, “to help me understand how he could have lied to me for so long, he said, “In many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!”
My ex also claimed to support feminist principles, yet when I sorted his papers after D-Day, I learned several female colleagues complained to HR about him. I also found cards and messages from a former admin assistant reminiscing about their breakfasts, and from her other suggestive comments, I suspect she meant sex.
After D-DAy, he told our friends that I was irrationally jealous because he was giving financial advice to a work colleague. He was actually giving tens of thousands of dollars to an online romance scammer in exchange for pornographic photos and the belief that he and the “hot babe” would live together less than a half mile away.
Joss’s comments explain it all.
Here we go, here’s the CL take on the Whedon news and Kai Cole’s post when it broke:
https://www.chumplady.com/hail-joss-whedon-conquering-douchebag/
100%. Cheating is about tipping the scales to be unequal in the FW’s favor. People who do that are not into equality.
Rarity, I just read Kai Cole’s essay. Thank you! It’s great! (And I love the way Josh Whedon refused to respond to it “out of respect for his ex- wife”!!! hahahahaha)
*knowing
Divorce this idiot. No amount of money or property is worth your sanity and safety. There is more money and property. I imagine there is a larger cultural thing at work here than my American brain can internalize about all of that, so I comprehend that there is a larger point many of us are missing. I wish I understood better, though I completely get playing that close to the vest (hopefully impending divorce and all.).
All the same-it sounds like if you break or die he gets those things anyway. Would be a damned shame if you could somehow move all of that to your daughters…he wouldn’t steal from THEM, would he, Mr. “I was in the Newspaper for Being a Great Person”? Just a thought. I mean, I bet he would, that is the kind of thing that Fuckwits do and all. Damn shame he already likes being in the newspaper though…
The Faux-Feminist-Crypto-Misogynist thing is just another part of a web of lies this idiot has spun. It’s what they do. “Why do people cheat?” Because they are entitled, because they don’t actualyl care about the wellbeing of the people that they profess to love, and because things like “the truth” are radioactive to them and that is a way that they run from it. That is what they do. Yours was just dumb enough to leave a literal papertrail on the matter.
As our fearless leader indicates-it has paid dividends for him to tell that lie. At best it’s grandstanding for the rest of the awfulness he is guilty of(I think it pretty fair to say-if he is faking feminism and has multiple women on the tether he probably has a bunch more that hasn’t come out in the wash yet.) I feel like part of this whole “Chump” process is coming to terms with precisely how full of shit and how big of a liar our respective fuckwits were.
Other than losing money and possessions to mine, there isn’t too much I can say “I’ve been there” with you on-what he did and continues to do is horrible. That said-mine took up activism when the cheating got really bad toward the end. Apart from giving her cover to go and betray me more, I think it balmed her inner horrors at the things she was doing(which was more than just cheating).
Happy Tuesday to Those That Celebrate!
I think that Confused Cat Mom’s Cheater is Cosplaying as a Feminist Ally because it helps create a narrative that is favourable to him …. and it seems to get him laid into the bargain Judging him by his actions when he thinks that no-one is looking, he’s no ally of anyone or anything other than himself.
I just hope that CCM can avoid the loss aversion that is stopping her from leaving. Divorcing her Cheater will cost her financially and emotionally, but life is too short to spend it tied to someone who does not have her interests at heart.
LFTT
Just to reinforce the public facing feminism with the abuse and misogyny at home. Towards the end of our 28 year marriage, my ex was taking 20 to 30 years younger women out for lunch. Women who had business ideas. Women who were trying to be entrepreneurs. He was taking a lot of of them to lunch. He was reaching out to them. He was trying to mentor them. He had the nerve to express to me that everyone complains that women can’t find mentors in the business world and here he is trying to help these women and he’s getting criticism. It was all a scheme to start relationships with them. Some of them picked up on it. One woman started bringing her brother to the meetings. I could tell that he had creeped her out. She had asked to meet me, etc. but some of them love the attention It would eventually blow up because he was actually unable to help them. It was all BS. Or they just caught on… he texted one woman while with her family on vacation in Disney World. Everyone saw right through him, but he thought he was stealthy.
This also just poured salt in my wound and my self esteem and my growth in the marriage. I had been a stay at home mom and was really trying to get back into the workforce and he absolutely did nothing but scream at me to get a job – did nothing to help despite many connections. He owned a company in which he could’ve brought me in in any role no matter how small, in an industry where many work as families. He just didn’t want me in the office so I could see what he was doing.
Gross. What a disgusting, vile pig.
This one is hard to read. CCM, I hope you can get an attorney to help you figure out how to protect your parents’ home — that does seem solvable — and from there how to get the eff out of this insanity. Your girls will be very proud of you one day for modeling mightiness. They’ll be proud of you for modeling how to get un-stuck.
You can do this.
He is such a feminist that he can’t just love one female, he has so much love and support to give, especially when they are on top. Oh, if he is a Christian, he is really into keeping the first and second commandments, not.
My first cheater made no bones about his dislike for anything weaker..woman included. But this was the 70s.and love was all you needed and Fascinating womanhood books..you know, Saran wrap? My 2nd Cheater made lots of noises about his love for his mother, his love of woman and all the equality, like me making more and being more successful. Later later he degenerated into a man who was afraid of, disrespected and wished to belittle any woman who seemed to threaten him. When I asked him one day if he respected woman and if he actually loved his mother ( who was a user of all men- each one of her 8 husband’s)He sat there on the couch mute. I asked because I sensed an undercurrent of rage that only grew more intense as our marriage imploded. It fit into the time line of increased porn use, him going out for “massages “, his late night computer time and his demeaning of me. It was there all along, it just took time to ripen.
Oh yes, Maribell Morgan and the Saran Wrap! 😄 When I was a kid, we had a next door neighbor with a scumbag serial cheating husband. She was into that. Poor desperate woman. She had a punk ass son who was a bully and I can pretty much guarantee he’s a cheater now.
My FW got more angry and hateful and his porn use increased too. I have not dated since I left him because most men use porn and I’m not chancing it.
The beauty of my life is, I’m Vintage now and there is no need to deal with a man any longer. I feel so awful as I look at my 43 year old son and plead to God, please not him too…
Joan Rivers: I bought the book “The Joy Of Sex,” OK? And I got – did you read that chapter 11? – where you wrap yourself up totally in Saran Wrap? Oh, yeah, great. And I lay down on the dining room table. And my husband came home, and he says, leftovers again?
I remember that. She was funny.
🤣 Damn I miss Joan Rivers.
OK that is hysterical!! Left overs????? Haaaaa!!!
You have to get him out of there. Your mental health depends on it. Find out who the schmoopie is and then tell him you’re going to tell her he’s married if he doesn’t leave within two weeks. Get a lawyer. You may think you can’t divorce, but you don’t know for sure what will happen with asset division. You need legal advice.
Your FW is a fraud and a prick, but don’t waste your time thinking about why he does what he does, whether it be narcissistic attention seeking or garden variety douchebaggery. Just get him gone.
Yeah, I feel like CCM needs to take the reins, because it will be no surprise at all if her husband leaves her and divorces her. That’s what they don’t tell you in RIC. FW can pull the rug right out from under you, no matter how much they swear they wanna keep the family together. They cannot be trusted.
That means that parents’ property is at risk now and has to be protected now. He absolutely cannot be counted on to do the right thing, not now, not ever.
FYI,
This is such a GOOD point and so important. I completely understand CCM’s hesitation. Immediately after D-Day, I was convinced that if I tried to divorce the FW, I would be homeless. Now, I realize that for some Chumps things really can be that dire. But I was not in that category. Things are not as financially secure for me now as they were when I lived with FW and there were 2 incomes. And once my kids are out of school, I probably need to move somewhere cheaper as things are VERY tight and this is not sustainable once child support goes away. But I am not in danger of being homeless. That was never an actual risk. But I really thought it was. I knew so little about how divorce works, and what I knew just scared me to the point that I really felt completely stuck. I couldn’t make any moves because I was just so frozen.
I was very lucky that the FW didn’t take that time to make his own terrible moves. He could have hid marital funds. He could have done lots of things while I was sitting there too scared to think straight.
CCM needs to figure her property out asap, because if she doesn’t, he may do somethig that she was not expecting. You are right, the one thing she knows for sure is he is NOT trustworthy. She needs to go with that.
Agree. I’m on another site where a bunch of us cheater haters are trying to impart that fact on a chump who seems determined to stay. Cheaters can and do leave. Living in fear of the other shoe dropping is tremendously stressful and can ruin your health.
So many things in this story resonated with me. The relationship renaissance during COVID that I mistook for the fruits of my earlier forgiveness was just the attentions bestowed by default on the “last woman on earth”. I went in on a ginormous mortgage that I’m stuck in to this day on the strength of that illusion. The moment the gyms reopened, so did our marriage (unilaterally). Your cheater being a self proclaimed feminist is the same as my FW’s OW telling my daughter (same age as her) that she prides herself on being a “girl’s girl”. I guess she was liberating me? The incessant impression management and “good dad” and “nice guy” act with people who don’t know what I know. Yes, the mind wants to solve this, like a Rubik’s cube constantly whirling for a new angle, where it all makes sense. But it can’t, everyone is living on their own reality and those realities just don’t fit together. Keep yours (updated with clear hard cold facts) and your sanity and dont look back.
“Your cheater being a self proclaimed feminist is the same as my FW’s OW telling my daughter (same age as her) that she prides herself on being a “girl’s girl”. I guess she was liberating me?”
The AP in my FW’s life told him that he shouldn’t feel bad leaving his family because if he stayed, he was keepig ME from finding my soul mate.
And hey, she wasn’t entirely wrong. The FW obviously did not love me, so staying with me, not loving me, and cheating on me was NOT a kindness. But it is so gross of the AP to use that to her own advantage. She dod NOT care about me, she just wanted him to herself.
Samr thing in your case, getting the FW out of your life WAS a good thing. But the AP doesn’t get to take credit for it.
This is so the “I’m subverting the patriarchy” scene from Portlandia 😂
LOL – exactly! https://www.avclub.com/portlandia-doug-becomes-a-feminist-1798183052
I admit to engaging in skein untangling over why cheaters do the weird things they do but I always untangle in the direction of “run screaming” because, as I learned working in advocacy for domestic violence survivors, there are too many eerie overlaps between garden variety cheaters and domestic abusers in terms of MO, behavior and psychological quirks.
Once you see the parallels, you can’t unsee them. For instance, there’s a very good explanation for why domestic abusers not only spout feminist rhetoric but often do it so convincingly in the book The Batterer by researchers Donald Dutton and Susan Golant.
As it happens, the explanation could easily apply to cheaters and I would recommend the book to all chumps though with the qualifier that Dutton turned out to be a FW himself which is why I credit co-author Susan Golant with most of the really important insights in the book. Nevertheless, there may also be a kind of confessional quality to Dutton’s contributions as in “takes one to know one” which, in a way, proves the very theory the book purports about why abusers often spew woke rhetoric: Dutton himself might have spent half his career playing hero to get laid.
But before I get into author’s arguments about the woke-spewing, I should explain a bit about why I’m comparing cheaters to batterers. It’s partly because I never encountered a DV survivor who wasn’t also cheated on and, the more I read about cheaters, the more the MOs and mental quirks of both batterers and cheaters sounded pretty much the same give or take black eyes, broken bones and bullet wounds. Because of this, I also agree with CL that chumps should be warned that, in a statistical sense, cheaters can potentially slide further down the criminal spectrum into more and more overt and dangerous acts of abuse because they were already on those trolley tracks to begin with. That doesn’t mean all will eventually violent but that there’s enough potential there to justify erring on the side of safety and escape.
So back to why abusers impersonate feminist allies, according to studies of batterers and spouse killers in prison settings cited by authors of The Batterer, many abusers have a strong “alacrity” for absorbing information from the culture, books, articles and other materials representing the perspectives of their prey (statistically mostly women). In other words, they study their targets.
The book hints that this also relates to “image management” which abusers channel abnormal amounts of psychic energy into maintaining. Absorbing information about women essentially helps wolves wear “good guy” sheep’s clothing. And, through something called “neutralization,” authors suggest that abusers invest in their own bs (lies and good guy images) in order to reduce the stigma and internal sense of guilt of the heinous things they do behind close doors.
The book also argues that abusers were typically victims of abuse in childhood but rather than emotionally “surviving” the abuse, they’re inculcated by it, something which might relate to the idea of “compulsive reenactment” where adult abusers are basically continually replaying traumatic events from childhood except, instead of playing the role of helpless victim, they play the role of powerful perpetrator as a subconscious method of making traumatic events have a different ending.
After reading this, I realized that the twisted satisfaction that abusers derive from victimizing is precisely because they were once victims themselves and already know how victims feel. This fits theories about how “cognitive empathy” (as opposed to kinder-gentler affective empathy) is part of the skill set of effective torturers and abusers since they have an intuitive sense of how to produce terror and paralysis in their victims (likely due to being subjected to these things as children).
Then, in turn, this intuition might relate to what a psychologist who consulted with the advocacy network described as the quasi-split personalities of domestic abusers: that, unlike people with full-blown dissociative identity disorder who could be said to have “floor to ceiling walls” separating their different personae, abusers tend to have short “office partitions” separating their different personalities while one central, evil, organizing persona directs the “show,” trotting out different personalities according to whatever persona serves the interest of the abusers in the moment. In short, unlike someone with multiple personality disorder, they know they wear different masks to produce a desired effect on different audiences, yet, like method actors, they deeply invest in these performances, even believing in the moment that this is who they really are.
What this could mean is that, among abusers’ fragmented/split personalities, there remains the petrified husk of their own former “victim self” which in turn hints at a secondary reason why these types are often attracted to material representing “women’s perspectives”: because abusers’ inner “victim selves” actually relate to the victimization and struggles that many women experience. In other words, they aren’t just studying their prey when they absorb “woke” concepts but also identifying.
The above might explain why all abusers absurdly see themselves as victims. But the reason this never seems to equate to actual empathy for others is that, like a long-dead star whose light reaches earth millions of years after the star expired, an abuser’s “inner victimized child” only exists in zombie form which abusers trot out to play “harmless” to lure in new prey, to evade consequences for their abusive behavior and to “neutralize” their own sense of negative stigma for their abusive behavior.
Speaking of the criminal spectrum, I started to realize that The Batterer and other material on domestic violence often draws from some of the same theories developed to explain the behavior and thinking of serial killers such as “neutralization/guilt-reduction” and the extreme compartmentalization dubbed “cubing” by incarcerated BTK serial killer Dennis Rader. While in prison, Rader confessed that, through this “cubing” or compartmentalization process, he managed to convince his family and community that he was an upstanding great guy for decades while secretly torturing and killing people.
The best liars are those who believe their own lies after all and Rader described almost believing his own false family man/pillar of the community role during the times he was playing that part.
Anyway, this is all a fancy way of saying that cheaters appear to be on the same spectrum of criminal mentality as domestic batterers who are, in turn on the same spectrum as serial killers. How’s that for a “run screaming” caveat?
“The book hints that this also relates to “image management” which abusers channel abnormal amounts of psychic energy into maintaining. ”
I saw a very good example of this. We were at a big outdoor event, and the FW saw an elderly woman struggling to carry her bag and her outdoor chair. Without hesitation, he walked right over and helped this stranger. It really stuck out to me. I had also seen this woman, but my mind was off in it’s own world and honestly, it didn’t really register “she could use a hand, go help her” until he was already doing it. I was impressed by how quickly he noticed and sprang to action. And then I also thought “wow, that was so nice of him. He was so nice to this elderly stranger. If only he could be that nice to me or my kids consistently” It really made me think. How is this guy who is generally so casually mean to us going out of his way to be extra nice to a stanger.
Apparently batterers are often drawn to helping and rescuing professions in which they can play hero in public.
I saw references to statistics like this when the news came out that Russel Brand is a sexual predator which many people had difficulty reconciling with his Mr. Woke Social Justice Warrior persona. But it’s actually pretty typical character-laundering.
Great post here HOAC. There’s a lot of food for thought. You’ve addressed my questions about the “mask” trope for narcissists (compartmentalization) as well as the slide down the spectrum into DV. I believe my FW never would have attacked me physically because he knew I would kill him in his sleep and make it look like an accident. But over 37 years the verbal and emotional abuse did escalate; I was the frog in the pot I guess, and looking back I kick myself for not paying attention to his criticisms and insults, manipulations and unacceptable attitudes. It took physical cheating for me to jump out of the pot and say “Nope, too hot for me now.” Live and learn, so if I ever have a relationship again there will be no need to accommodate anyone else’s dysfunction. Any man who is out of balance can show himself the door sooner rather than later, and I will hold the same standards for myself.
Best Thing,
The introduction to Evan Stark’s book Coercive Control describes how most survivors view the emotional abuse, control and manipulation to be the most devastating, paralyzing aspect of domestic abuse even beyond violent assault. And, as Stark argued in the book and in government hearings in many countries, this is for good reason since, statistically, coercive control is viewed as the “golden thread” which best predicts relative risk of eventual domestic murder with or without histories of domestic assault.
Scary, right? In fact, a whopping 40% of domestic murder cases in Australia weren’t preceded by any reports of violence so that murder was often the first and last violent act in these relationships.
Because of this, I’ve come to believe this is why cheating is probably the most frequent “last straw” for a lot of abuse survivors– even victims of the most violent abuse– which finally triggers rebellion and escape. Unfortunately, back when I worked in advocacy, this was typically misinterpreted by bystanders and legal and helping professionals to mean that victims didn’t really “mind” (or even liked?) all the previous forms of abuse but could only be motivated to rebel and escape out of “jealousy/possessiveness.” Or worse, bystanders and legal authorities would assume the survivor fabricated stories of violent or coercive abuse out of jealousy/possessiveness, which was why survivors were often advised not to mention that part of abuse to cops and ADAs lest they get their cases dropped or lose their victim/witness compensation, etc.
But the advocacy service I worked for had a much different understanding of the cheating-as-last-straw thing: that it’s usually only at the point where the danger of staying in an abusive relationship finally exceeds the considerable statistical risk of trying to leave (no kidding: risk of being killed rises 800% or so when victims attempt to escape) that most survivors will start planning to leave and, quite universally, cheating is taken as a cue that that dangerous shift has occurred.
I think it makes sense because most survivors understand on a gut level that their primary value to abusers is as sexual appliance so that, as long as they retain that value, abusers are more incentivized to “pull their punches” and perhaps allow victims to live. But cheating signals that that window of mercy may be closing fast as abusers seek to “sexually replace” their primary victims. In other words, as bad as the abuse had been prior to cheating, it was about to get a whole lot worse.
So you’re certainly not alone in feeling that, despite all the abuse that came before, what finally compelled you to split were revelations of infidelity. The hesitation to throw off the spellbinding survival mechanism of Stockholm syndrome and leave the marriage prior to cheating was probably not because you accepted (or liked) the abuse that came before but more about the statistically rational fear of post-separation escalation.
“statistically, coercive control is viewed as the “golden thread” which best predicts relative risk of eventual domestic murder with or without histories of domestic assault.”
This is so terrifying to me. I’ve seen you state it previously so it has been on my radar for awhile.
Sometimes there are periods where the FW (who I am very low contact with) is calm and polite for awhile. Generalyl that is what he is trying to do, he is mostly on his best behaviour. I think he is working towards proving he has changed so mmy oldest will speake to him again. Possibly he is looking to be on better terms with me as well. Usually he does a pretty good job for awhile but can’t help himself and eventually the mask slips. He won’t say anything too terrible. Just enough snark or condescendation to remind me that the abusive FW is still there.
But during the calmer times , still now, I sometimes question MYSELF. “Is he really that bad? Am I overreacting by being super low contact”?
And then I remember that he is the poster child for perpetrators of domestic murder who “only” used coercive control until they didn’t and instead murdered their estranged partners.
Only the experts are experts, and only those who work in the field, like you did, see a lot of this information. I think the average chump probably thinks, as I did, that their FW “only” abuses them emotionally, verbally and mentally and they would never hit them. In the meantime, stats say those people are more likely to jump from not being physically abusive at all, to full on murder. Anytime I feel “crazy” I remember that.
I think the stats and facts regarding coercive control take the “crazy” out of the chump experience in general because I think most cheating is facilitated by coercive control. But in cases like yours where the coercion and control were going off the rails, I think what replaces crazy in the short run is usually a wave of terror.
But it’s kind of like taking the hold off your mail when you return from a trip and getting a sudden flood of UPS boxes and bills. That terror was there all along and was instrumental to every decision you made while you were entrapped. Then the crazy during abuse due to the deep divide between the danger our ancient lizard brains are picking up on and the survival tendency to minimize and deny the danger (in order to avoid panicking and thus triggering the abuser to escalate).
Since you’re still being forced into contact with the Prince of Darkness, it’s totally normal that you’d find yourself flipping back and forth between the two states: red alert and questioning your perceptions. I think both instincts were designed to keep us safe and improve chances of survival and are marvels at picking up on a million cues that our conscious minds could never tabulate in real time like the tiniest shift in pheromones and microexpressions of predatory people or maybe even picking up information through quantum brain telepathy.
But the cues themselves are based on primitive options from our ape era (freeze/fawn, fight/flee) and don’t account for modern options like calling the police or asking a friend to stand by as witness, setting up a recording device or just lying to the scary person and saying, uh, you can’t make the kid drop-off time when you sense a shitstorm brewing.
So I wish those signals came with LED light displays with an error code you get on modern dishwashers. “Oh, look, E24 means the drain is clogged and my ex is secretly thinking about killing me…” It would reduce the confusion and make it easier to make practical decisions.
““Oh, look, E24 means the drain is clogged and my ex is secretly thinking about killing me…”
Hilarous. But so true, they don’t come with instructions.
Lol, it’s an outdated brain app developed long before humans acquired language but it’s all we’ve got.
Hi everyone, I’m Confused Cat Mom. I’m deeply touched by CL and everyone who’s written to share their compassion, commiseration and helpful comments.
Thanks for noting that there might be a cultural nuance to this that is difficult to negotiate. I do not live in the West, but come from a rather conservative and patriarchal country. My family is traditional, patriarchal and deeply religious. Divorce is extremely frowned upon. Mental illness is stigmatised, and it’s taken me many years to come to a place of being able to even consider fighting back against all of FW’s emotional abuse and mindfuckery.
I’m still so overwhelmed by the Sisyphian emotional task of finding myself in the shitstorm that’s everything has been. I’m trying to digest all the comments, and will seriously reconsider taking on the arduous endeavour of divorcing FW.
Once again, thank you for seeing and hearing me 😢
I hope you’re doing better these days, and I’m sorry you got stuck in this situation! We aren’t trying to dog on you – just remind you that as long as you stay, you’re still at the mercy of the cheater, and he can choose to take your money, divorce you, or worse. He can bring your child around the OW even now.
Please stay safe.
He would have cheated no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. Well, unless he was marooned on a desert island inhabited only by himself. In every other circumstance he would have cheated.
Here’s a link to an interesting article about JFK in People. Don’t judge me. Anyway, Jackie talks about JFK lacking an emotion. CN: any idea what that emotion would be?
https://www.aol.com/bombshell-jfk-book-reveals-wild-120000347.html
Ding! Ding! Ding! I knew you’d guess correctly.
He was approaching women when she was pregnant, and cheating on her right after she miscarried their child.
And he wasn’t sure he’d ever loved her, or anyone. Cue little tiny sad-sounding violins, while psychiatrist with clipboard checks off classic signs of narcissism.
Now we know who shot JFK: Jackie.
I have to agree with Chump Lady. It’s risky in a lot of ways for you to continue in this marriage. And as she pointed out, it’s quite possible he’ll decide to divorce you.
So do it yourself and get out of this. To the extent that you can because you’ll have to coparent with him.
Yeah my FW was a champion of women too. In his case he truly is mentally ill and delusional. He actually deep down hates his mother and all women. He is deeply dependent on women and his mother was not available as a safe emotional person. He is a disturbed individual.
He doesnt respect women and I would call him out on it. Such as paying for sex workers, is not respecting women. The women are sex trafficked and are not doing it because they enjoy it. Having affairs with coworkers that you mentor are in a position of power over is not respectful. Leading women on, flirting with them, making them think you are available and wasting their time is not respectful. Having affairs is disrespectful to me. Various other small instances over the years. But he would espouse about how much he loved women, respected women, was a champion supporting them in the workplace, ect.
They are selfish. Women are of use to them and their needs. Yes he loves women, loves to screw them. Its all to serve their own agenda and again, there is a certain amount of them lying to themselves. In my case, he is a pathological liar. It is very strange to witness someone say something one day and later deny they said it. I came to the conclusion he truly believes his lies, its his subconscious steering him and protecting him from himself. Im sure others have witnessed this bizarre behavior. I wish he knew he was lying, that would make more sense to me.
I have been free of my FW for over 4 years now (I will be celebrating the 3rd anniversary of my divorce on Sunday!), and the relief, liberation and happiness I feel are palpable. There is, of course, a lot I could say about all of the details (most of which include the exact playbook described in Leave A Cheater), but I don’t want to go there right now.
What I do want to share is my FW’s impression management of being a supporter of women, in my specific case, a supporter of women in science, because I think it epitomizes all of his his fuckedupness and hypocrisy in one example. Context: we are both science professors at the same university.
Here is how my FW supported this woman in science: During COVID, I was working from my home office, about to join an online meeting to review applications to our national research granting agency (a huge deal!) while also caring for our young daughter who was at home during lockdown. He was out fucking his fitness instructor (which I did not know at the time — he told me he was doing something else — I can’t remember what…). I texted to ask him when he would be home to care for our daughter because the meeting was about to start. His answer was that he was delayed because he took a wrong turn. Well, that’s for damn sure! Apparently being led by his penis.
After D-day, I asked the research office at our university to not let him participate on the front lines of initiatives to support equity and diversity, so that he couldn’t use his participation for kibbles on his social media posts: if he truly supported women in science, then he would do the work behind the scenes, without the public accolades.
I’m very impressed with you, BetterNow. I am so sorry you endured that FW, though I am glad you have moved forward mightily with your life. I went through a very similar experience as you, and I am coming up on a one year anniversary from D-Day. My now ex-husband (since March 31, 2025) is a complete and total fraud of a “feminist” who claimed to champion the “downtrodden” including women, according to him. Turns out, his entire facade of fake acting as a champion of women is just to get a harem of kibbles. After 10.3 years of a fake marriage to him and 2 years of a fake courtship, I discovered troves of evidence on his laptop that he was lying and cheating on me since the day he met me. I was simply his bank account and was a socially appropriate cover (he is also a closeted gay man-child with unmentionable sexual deviancy too long to describe) for him. He gladly lived off of me for the entire marriage and claimed his salary was placed in a separate index fund for our future. No, he was using his salary to pay for his double life. Not on me or the marriage. I did the entire divorce paperwork myself and got away cleanly in all ways financially and health-wise since we had no child together plus thankfully we had a dead bedroom for almost the entirety of our relationship. Like you, I have moved on with my life knowing that I never actually knew this psychopathic creature who targeted me on a dating website. He’s really just some malicious creature I had the temporary misfortune of allowing into my life. I have grown stronger and wiser because of this. I hope you have, too.
Oh! I forgot to mention that this particular event happened on Family Day…