Cheating Ex Appears on a ‘Don’t Date Him’ Site
Warnings about her ex appear on a “don’t date him” site. Should she tell him? Or stay quiet? They still have to coparent.
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Dear Chump Lady,
Your book and blog have been so important to me after a pretty classic case of being gaslit, mistreated, and ultimately chumped. I have limited information about his extracurricular activities. But I suspect there were multiple affairs and short term hookups over our 10+ year marriage, in addition to an affair with a married, lower-ranking military officer/coworker. (I found selfies and explicit videos of her on his burner phone, everything else is circumstantial evidence).
I kicked him out immediately after D-Day and finalized our VERY acrimonious divorce last spring. Since then, I have been trying to move on with my life as a single mom (who receives not a dime in child support for our teen, which is something I agreed to, along with agreeing to give him over half of our estate — he hired a nightmare lawyer, who we paid out of our joint accounts, and I was the breadwinner many times over, so I am lucky I avoided paying him alimony). Our relationship is pretty limited to co-parenting issues, and is moderately friendly given the circumstances.
A few days ago, a friend alerts me that FW is on an app where women post men and warn people of bad dating experiences.
It has his photo with his name and our city, and says he pretends to want a relationship but just wants sex and will ghost and block you as soon as he gets it. There is a comment from another woman saying he is a “classic narcissist” and “I recommend staying away from this trainwreck of a person!” Users can give people “red flags” or “green flags” and he got so many red flags that after I downloaded the app, I got a push notification about him!!
At first I felt a little smug about the karma, but it has taken all of the self restraint in the world not to tell him about this, or to not comment on the post and really go off on why women should avoid him. I am a horrible, horrible secret keeper, and still have a deep-rooted sense of concern about him. But I also know that if I alerted him or a mutual friend to the post, it could tip him off on whoever the poster/commenters are, and I consider myself a “girls girl” who doesn’t want to jeopardize their anonymity.
I know in my brain that I should go about my merry business and let the post stand for itself, but I need help not spilling the beans!
Any advice?
Trying to be a Kermit Tea Sipper
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Dear Kermit,
Oh, totally shut up about this.
Do not share what you know.
With him, or the enormous collective of other women he’s fucked over, or any mutual acquaintance. Just enjoy the validation. And the power of his stupidity.
I know you’re a chump and don’t think in Machiavellian stratagems, but the data dump of his awfulness could help you if you ever have to be back in court with him. Seeing as he’s a litigious FW, that’s highly likely. So, keep your hands clean and your powder keg dry.
Screenshot the whole multimedia presentation and save it to the cloud. Then decenter the FW and get back to your life.
But, but… that’s so unsatisfying!
I will permit you to IMAGINE telling him. Oh, JaniceB89 says you have a tiny dick. The moist snot… the tears and humiliation. Feelings of justice as your FW faces a consequence…
Now let the fantasy go.
Because what would happen if you told your ex you found him on a don’t date him site is:
- It’d destroy your gray rock/no contact.
- He wouldn’t be contrite, he’d deny everything instead. (Once a gaslighter, always a gaslighter…)
- He’d turn it back on you. How DARE you stalk him, smear him, pry into the private details of his
wandering dickdating life.
No, much better to enjoy the power of this knowledge and shut up.
it has taken all of the self restraint in the world not to tell him about this, or to not comment on the post and really go off on why women should avoid him.
They don’t need your voice. There’s total consensus that this guy is a dick dribble stain on the crusty sofa of life.
I am a horrible, horrible secret keeper
Don’t think of it as a secret. Your cheating ex is aware he’s a FW. And the people he’s dated are aware he’s a FW. And YOU know he’s a FW. So, zero surprise here.
Really, it’s not your concern. You can’t save the others and you have a new life to build, so focus your precious energies accordingly.
and still have a deep-rooted sense of concern about him.
Let that go. He didn’t have any deep-rooted concern when he was cheating on you. What do you imagine telling him would do? Send him into apoplexies of self-improvement? You divorced this person for a reason. Leave him to the natural consequences of his behavior: societal derision.
I need help not spilling the beans!
Chew a leather strap. Look, isn’t the schadenfreude enough?
I too found my cheating ex on a “don’t date him” site many years ago. (My neighbor sent it to me.) While it was somewhat comforting to know that he didn’t have a character transplant, I shouldn’t have been surprised. By that point, he’d had DECADES to perfect his double life. Of course there were new victims comparing notes.
Trust that they suck.
One other word of warning about cheater or “homewrecker” sites, they’re often run by scammers. The point of them isn’t to warn the newbies, but to charge people a scrub fee for taking down the post. It’s not verified and there’s nothing to prevent an angry FW or deranged affair partner for retaliating with a profile on you.
Just back away from the drama. Your sanity will thank you for it.
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Friday Challenge is to share if you’ve ever found your ex on a don’t date him (or her) site. And what the fall out of that was. Or chime in with advice for Kermit on how to keep this to herself.
Excellent point that I should’ve mentioned is that the closed social media “Are We Dating the Same Guy” sites have a rule of privacy. You cannot expose the details of FWs outside the closed group. Be safe out there!
My ex has been posted on the “are we dating the same guy” Facebook group. Multiple times. I did comment on one of the posts over a year ago saying that I am the ex-wife and feel free to reach out to me for information. But I was very careful not to slander him publicly because we are “coparenting”. I totally agree with you Tracy. Seeing the women compare notes was validating. The only thing that i want to respond was the woman who worked with him saying he’s a really good guy… a family man. Like why would you say anything if you have not had an intimate relationship with him? As for you, Stay out of the drama because you never know who all is on those sites and looking for information to run back and tell. Several women did reach out to me and we’re only looking to confirm their suspicions. That made me feel like I had done the right “girls girl” thing without jumping fully into the drama publicly.
When I looked at all the women who had responded, it further confirmed that I could trust that he sucks!!
Since then I have hidden the group because searching his name in it every other day was not the best way to move forward.
I wish those pages were still allowed overall. They sadly never were where I lived.
Dear Kermit,
My only thought for NOT telling FW is that it will show you are checking up on him and that “you still care,” which is the WRONG thing to share with a FW. He might try to come back to you. I agree with CL. Just KNOW in your heart that the world ALSO knows he sucks and let that thought warm you from the inside out and just go on your merry way!! This sounds like a win-win-win-win to me! Congratulations!
“My only thought for NOT telling FW is that it will show you are checking up on him and that “you still care,” which is the WRONG thing to share with a FW.” Ding ding ding! It’s all just kibbles to them! He would never be like “oh, there are so many accusers; that must mean I really am messed up”.
I am meh about FW, but very concerned for some of the other victims. But there’s a current case in the media that made me realize that I wouldn’t want to find out their collusion/delusion of some of them. I couldn’t handle that (I’m already disappointed by humanity to the max as is). There’s this actress currently in the media in my neck of the woods (I didn’t find any English articles and you wouldn’t know her either way cause not US, Canada, , Aussie, UK nor famous Parisian ;). She’s 60 years old. After the first paparazzi pictures with her boyfriend appeared in the media in later summer/fall 2024, women went to the media with his convictions – he is the tinder swindler in older and has scammed many. He also just randomly disappeared/ghosted an ex after stealing money. What did she do (the actress)? Gave an interview in which she said “I am at an age in which a lady must follow her heart! I love him and he loves me.” Stayed with the guy! (Facepalm! Talk about OW delusion.) Fast forward a couple of months – he will have to face a new trial with over 20 additional victims. What did he do? Faked his suicide to the actress on Christmas Eve (THIS Christmas Eve!) with a goodbye note and disappeared. His brother then confirmed that he’s still alive. I really can’t believe how many other women she discounted. Makes me actually mad.
In the most recent remake of The Invisible Man, his power over his victim was his invisibility. When he became visible she kicked his ass. Think of keeping your mouth shut as staying invisible and protecting yourself.
When playing Battleship, the winner is the one who keeps their ships hidden. Think of keeping your mouth shut as keeping your battleships hidden.
A cheater’s power over you is their astonishing ability to keep their mouths shut. They delight in duping you. Think of that when you’re tempted to run to them and tell them what you know. Keeping your mouth shut is the one behavior worth stealing from the cheater/ side piece playbook.
They want to know what you know so they can use it against you or rebury the bodies. Don’t help them out.
Hello! I am the letter writer and your comment really struck a chord with me!!! This framing helped me to think about making actions more with strategy and the end in mind as opposed to doing what I feel obligated or impelled to do. Thank you for taking the time to comment!
I haven’t read through all the comments yet, so I don’t know if this gem has been shared yet. A common refrain that runs through this site is “If it feels good, don’t do it”.
That was advice that came from Mr Chumplady, a lawyer. And often it makes more sense in, “sure, you want to slash his tires NOW, but if you eventually have to go before a judge, you will look better if you didn’t slash his tires” kind of way.
But I have found it serves me well in general. It seems unsatisfying in the moment, but long term, it keeps you above the chaos. I have months and months and months of texts between us where he goes on and on, angry, rude, and unhinged. And I don’t engage beyond answering factual questions about our kids. I have WANTED to reply with some real zingers, but I remind myself that having these texts where I clearly am the sane one is a much better option.
And I agree with what others have said, it’s a lot more delicious as this secret schadenfreude you have over him, vs if you tell him he’s just going to deny it or think of it as evidence that you care.
I have a story myself. My ex, after he moved out but before he found his new serious gf, was dating A LOT. He was on all the dating apps and it truly seems he dated every available woman in a 50 mile radius.
He liked to tell all his dates that we were still the best of friends. Used me as cover, to look like this great guy who is single because his first marriage just ended with no fault of anyone. “Just one of those sad things…”
Well, he went out with a woman and somehow it came up that his date has a mutual friend with me.
Woman goes home, calls said friend “I just had this great date with this guy, FW, you know his wife, SortOfOverIT. He says they are still super close. He seems great. ”
In the meantime, FW was already messaging her trying to make plans for a 2nd date.
My friend was like “No. He’s not a great guy.” She spilled the general tea. Asked her friend to not mention their conversation. They must be close, because the woman didn’t second guess this info. She turned him down for a 2nd date. Just said “it’s not you, it’s me”.
The FW replied “you are too fat and ugly anyway”.
This story both tickles me and mortifies me.
On the one hand, I kind of love the fact that his insistence on talking about ME to all his dates led to one finding out what he is really like and blocking him. But I was also mortified that he said that to her. Kind of like “hey, don’t tell people we are friends and act like THAT!” The woman wasn’t offended by his “fat & ugly” comment because he apparently found her attractive enough to make out with after their first date. And that whole “I didn’t want you anyway” tactic is SO obvious and pathetic anyway.
Early on I realized I had to have a plan for unsolicited incoming information about the cheater and his side pieces. (PLAN = Positive Loving Actions Neutralize). For a long time after DDay, the entire world was a trigger and I never knew when the next meteor would hit.
One mental trick I use to stand down with mouth shut when necessary is to remember people who had far more justification to pay back the perp and couldn’t-wouldn’t-didn’t. Marc Klass, father of Polly Klass. The family of Laci Peterson. The family of Shanann Watts.
Their shit sandwiches make mine taste like birthday cake. This is NOT to minimize or dismiss my experience or my feelings but gives me the strength to keep my words and actions beyond reproach. (Beyond Reproach is the other destination I want to reside in besides Meh….)
Nowhere are adults in room more necessary than situations where the emotionally and psychologically disordered have caused grievous harm to others. To children. Be an adult in the room.
I love this. I am having a hard time today- my sons are with me, and I love them and they are helping me move out of their childhood home which I had to sell because I was a SAHM- but I am triggered and ashamed and so on. I am cutting and pasting this onto a document of things that help.
Hello NHOC,
I am right this minute moving too!!!!! 🙁
My plan is to be out of here by month’s end. BUT, it is so hard to do!!! I also feel sad, ashamed, practically frozen. I know it has to be. But damn. I’ve been here 25 years and now it’s time to move on.
Give yourself grace. You’re only human.
Here’s to a better 2025!
❤️
I agree. If you have to communicate with them, don’t show your hand, and keep it focused on what has to be done, nothing more. My attorney taught me Bill Eddy’s BIFF method during closeout, and I mastered the wonder of the short, business-like reply to my ex’s emails. It became oddly satisfying to do that.
When the last piece was done, I stopped initiating contact (no custody issues). There were several possible things my ex might ping me on after that, but my attorney told me what to do. One came up, and I handled it, no attorney needed.
And my ex gave up. I became a hard target.
VH, You make great points here …it’s way too late for me (as I showed my cards way too soon) but your points are good to consider.
Sadly I showed my cards too soon as well. In my case, I have had many more opportunities arise to practice keeping them hidden. Lesson learned. As my therapist says when I regret my actions, “Next time you will.”
❤️
….that being said, there are times to speak up and times to stay silent. Pausing when agitated, sometimes for a very long time, is always a good idea. Restraint of pen and tongue is always a good idea. When in doubt, don’t is always a good idea. Learning when to speak up and when to stay silent is a process and an important skill to develop. Definitely do not do anything that compromises your credibility, your integrity, your emotional maturity. Do not hand them a single piece of ammo they can use against you, because they are desperate for that. Inviting a cheater or a side piece into the ring is always a bad idea. Stay cool and classy. You will be glad you did.
Once again, we benefit from Velvet’s wisdom! You are treasured here. ❤️
Why?? Why are you still wrapped up in your ex?
THIS is the real issue here, and you need to explore it thoroughly – for your own safety. This guy tried to ruin your life, and still could if he gets the motivation. You put yourself (and other women) at risk when you poke this dragon. There’s literally NO benefit to you if you tell him, only a list of risks.
Do you miss the illusion of your marriage so much that your brain is telling you any attention from him is good, even if it’s negative?
Read Melody Beattie’s book, “Codependent No More.” It’s a great book for breaking one’s addiction to another person.
I am the letter writer- You hit the nail on the head- I struggle immensely with codependency and always have. I read “codependent no more” years ago, before I separated, but it’s worth looking it up again!
I haven’t read the book, but if you thought it was solid advice, it probably IS worth a re-read. I say that because for me, I found that how I handled the FW got better and better with time. (and therapy)
But for example, the more distance I had from him, both the literal distance of him moving out and the distance of time healing away from him, the easier it was to grasp onto those tools that help me set and keep boundaries. There might be advice in that book that you are more open to incorporating now than you were earlier on.
I’m right there with ya, girl, and feel like I could’ve written your letter a few years ago. Hang in there.
Thank you for your excellent comment, Cam, and I’m proud of OP for taking it in the generous spirit in which Cam intended it. The struggle to decenter FW and their chaotic dramaz is real.
I read that she kicked him out immediately and the divorce was finalized in spring, and that a friend had alerted her to the website, and that she was triggered by it, understandably, and is writing in seeking a way to detach.
I’ve been in recovery for 39 years (AA, Al Anon, CoDA, ACA) and this letter writer did way better than I did IMHO. I was completely dismayed by the way infidelity affected me. It felt like my recovery vanished. Thankfully my therapist told me that trauma can reactivate all kinds of distressing thinking and behavior that has been long gone.
Recovery in my experience is not becoming hook-proof; it’s about recognizing a hook and not biting it or recognizing that I’ve bitten the hook and detaching it….
❤️
I’ve been recovery for six years now and am halfway through leading a step study with my bestie as co-leader. It takes a LONG time to deal with codependency, which I prefer to call problems with boundaries and control because it’s more descriptive. And trauma? When that is in the mix, it’s really hard to get to a smooth spot and stay there.
I think I kinda got it, but people do indeed still hook me a bit at times. I’ve learned to spit it out though and get away. And that type of person has been pushed to the outskirts. I don’t have much to do with them at all.
Eh, cut her some slack. She’s a normal human being and it takes time to fully disconnect. The divorce is recent. I just realized that it’s been over 15 years since I kicked out my cheater/abuser. I have NO concern about him, but it took time. However, I did get a letter from his mother this summer demanding contact information for my children and I’m going to answer when I’m not angry any more. I’m nearly there.
Of course. But she came here for advice, so I’m giving her advice.
I’m not judging her, I’m addressing the serious safety issue she came to us for help with. If someone’s about to walk into traffic, you don’t dance around the fact, you warn them.
My apologies if I misunderstood the intention of your initial comment.
I did not get that she is wrapped up in her ex (they have a child together), that she is clinging to an illusion of her marriage, or that she is about to walk into traffic. I read that she got triggered by some incoming information, hasn’t said anything to him, and wanted advice to resist doing so. To me, your initial comment read like a verbal lashing (as someone who was verbally lashed recently!) 😪
Again, my apologies if I misunderstood your intent.
It read that way to me, too, for the record.
It’s funny some people appreciate pointing out again as tracy did- TERRIBLE idea to contact him. The feelings thing- that can take a lifetime as some of the above things say. Coming here is great, and a good PTSD therapy group or therapist too…to just say it, because you feel it still. But then get the help to not act on it. And if you do=- forgive yourself.
I have never found my ex on anything and I’m actually kind of annoyed that women protect him.
Or maybe I just haven’t found it yet.
The way everyone protected him from me while he was cheating for our entire relationship makes me think I won’t.
Consider the possibility that the women he’s consorting with now have their own shameful secrets to protect and this creates a “MAD” dynamic (mutually assured destruction) so that no one can rat anyone else out.
I have a feeling this is a typical reason many cheaters or even just serial pickup artists seek out affair partners who are married. Really practiced predators may have other tactics to keep their conquests quiet like providing professional perks to their marks which, whether or not there was any open quid pro quo arrangement involved, most women will keep quiet about to avoid being perceived as climbing the ladder on their backs. Others will get women to perform illegal or highly embarrassing acts. For example, when I worked in the media industry, I was quite credibly warned about a particular entertainment lawyer who infamously guarded the reputation of a celebrity serial rapist by paying off or terrorizing victims into silence by weaponizing the court system or threatening careers. Clearly this kind of coercive coverup wasn’t just part of the job since he practiced it personally. One of the things he reportedly did was dose every woman he dated with GBH and, when they were half off their rockers and barely aware of what was happening, videotape these women performing debased and humiliating sex acts, then he’d store all the tapes in a vault as future silencing tools because he would eventually become severely abusive to every partner. This must have worked because this monster wasn’t trailed by a single allegation during the #MeToo scandal though his trail of abuse is probably bigger than Weinstein’s.
It’s so disappointing and baffling how often people protect abusers (while blatantly ignoring their victims), and I’ll never understand it no matter how often we see it here in Chump Nation. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, too.
My advice to Kermit on how to keep quiet is to remind herself she needs to hold her cards close to her chest in case she needs to play that ace in the hole. Enjoy the satisfaction of the validation that yes, he sucks, and keep that as a secret pleasure.
In any interaction, she will have that secret satisfaction of knowing what she knows about him, which can give her confidence (and an inner smirk) when she has to deal with him. It will be much harder for him to unsettle her when she knows what she does and he doesn’t know. Telling her fuckwit ex would not result in anything approaching satisfaction for her. He’d be incensed and his pride would be wounded, and he’d try in some way to punish her not only for the ratings but for throwing it in his face. It would simply involve her in a wrangle with him that he would prolong. Posting on the site itself would destroy any possible future use of the trump card in case she needs to bring it into court.
I personally would love to get some validation that my ex has been exposed for what he is, because he appears to have landed on his feet. Another woman has stepped forward to caretake and validate him, and I’m pretty sure that I have been cast as “that awful woman who made his life miserable for 35 years, and isn’t it great he has a woman now who appreciates him.” On the bad days, I think this is, in fact, the “natural consequences” he “deserves”–that it’s true that I was the problem–and that the fact that I am going to have to face old(er) age alone is the “natural consequences” that I “deserve.” Oh, yes, I know him, and I trust that he sucks, and I wouldn’t want him back, but his sucking doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences for his life at all (I am not a person who thinks his punishment is he has to live with himself, because he is fine living as the person he is).
I hear this. My FW has a new gf. I don’t know much about her but she seems lovely. And why wouldn’t she be? I was. She is no doubt being as tricked as I was initially. Probably is told I’m crazy. She *certainly* hasn’t been told the truth because who would STAY if they knew the actual truth? And he’d never be that honest to her, he is not even that honest with himself.
So sometimes I get annoyed that he gets to go live this nice life, with someone to take vacays with and buy him birthday gifts etc. It can at times just be a hard pill to swallow.
The only thing that helps for me is consciously turning my thoughts away from him, and focusing on ME. I’m not financially in a position where I want to spend $ on vacations. But at some point, if I want to, I probably can. I can afford to buy myself a birthday gift, and it will be something I want.
But mostly I just focus on how nice it is to move through most days without someone ruining my day by 9am.
This is me to day. I do this a lot –
that it’s true that I was the problem–and that the fact that I am going to have to face old(er) age alone is the “natural consequences” that I “deserve.”
My sons are visiting and one at least thinks this most likely. Because I can’t talk to them about his abuse to me. It’s hard. He’s doing great so I think. He left when he had a new wife lined up, and his career had skyrocketed. But I don’t miss him. I still do blame myself though.
I do think I’ll be alone, but I have three kids and although they will/may never know the truth about everything he did, the depth and breadth of, they saw how he treated me. They are maintaining a relationship with him (he’s their dad, they don’t know everything) but they know enough to feel good about my decision to divorce and they all want to support me (in their own way). I am so grateful for them and so so sad they witnessed what I couldn’t see (brain fog).
Situation: lost wallet
A decent person turns it into the PD, everything inside included.
A jerk keeps it, or just takes the money out and leaves the wallet.
Neither response is caused by the individual who lost the wallet.
❤️
I get some initial interest in what they are doing post-divorce, but I recommend putting that on a back shelf and moving on at some point. There are of course concerns if you have young children and custody issues, but even there, playing investigator probably should have limits.
I googled some at first and found a picture of him on a trip. It looked like a “boyfriend” picture, but I couldn’t tell who took it. I was going to show it to the college kids, but it disappeared. Other bits of information came out other ways after I stopped looking, and I’ve always felt strangely meh. He had a longer-term girlfriend that he took to a family wedding, but I don’t know if they are still together or not.
A younger friend of mine told me about the “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” groups, and there is indeed one for where my ex landed. But I really don’t need that to confirm that he was an epic, disordered jerk. Because he was, and likely still is.
If it feels good don’t do it applies to this as well.
From yesterday’s post which really resonated with me:
Effective manipulation is about how you make your mark feel.Special, chosen, graced by their presence. But also heroic, generous, and magnanimous. When your mom helps your ex out, she doesn’t feel used. She feels NEEDED. She can think good things about herself. Gosh, she forgives! What a thoughtful person Mom is. So excellent at what she does.
I think a lot of us Chumps pick timid forrest creatures to take care of, feel needed, be psychologists to, because of a need we have to be needed or heroic. I for sure see this in myself. I took responsibility for FW issues, and tried to make him happy, smooth over things, to the detriment of myself. It is good to get to the point where you put yourself and your needs first. At this point I’d rather be called a bitch for being selfish than a martyr. But For sure examine why you feel the need to still protect him. Put those energies into protecting your kids, a dog, volunteer with disabled children. Anything else!
Dear Kermit,
You know the old adage about messengers and bearers of bad news, right? They get shot. This is particularly true if you bring the bad news to a narcissistic FW because what narcissists invariably do when their identities and images are threatened is to project their own ugly MOs onto a scapegoat.
In this case, the handiest scapegoat and the one he was clearly practicing on for years would be you. And the projection of his own MO might be to either assume 1) you’re the one who left the post because you’re still pining over his sparkle dick and trying to stop him from sharing it with the grateful throngs; or 2) he’ll assume this is why you’re bringing the news to him– because you’re so miffed and heartbroken he’s sharing his glittering wang with the grateful throngs.
In that sense I think CL is right that you need to guard yourself against false accusations of stalking at the very least because what you may not know is that he’s been stalking you the whole time. Furthermore, probably since the moment he began cheating, he’s likely been doing everything in his puny power to cock-block you in order to prevent you from being able to move on and form a new romantic relationship yourself.
One of the interesting things I learned when working as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and reading forensic research of batterers in prison settings is that many abusers mask their dependency on their victims. Then after reading countless chump narratives and learning more about coercive control (“subviolent” forms of emotional abuse), it began to dawn on me that many of the same clinical findings easily apply to cheaters. But it might come as a big surprise to a lot of chumps that cheaters are territorial. Especially in situations where cheaters go out of their ways to behave callously and uncaring and take every opportunity to dismiss chumps as unattractive losers, it’s easy for chumps to miss the fact that this is one of the fundamental motives of cheating: to enforce one-sided monogamy. Otherwise cheaters would simply inform their partners that they wanted open relationships before ever acting on it and would leave their partners free to do in kind.
But that’s not what cheaters want. They’re like dogs with two or more bones who, once they think they’ve chewed everything edible off the first bone, will bury it and then growl over the burial site to prevent other dogs from getting at it. They want sexual freedom for themselves and none for their partners– into perpetuity. In fact, even if they do abandon you, they want the assurance that you’ll be left prostrate in a ditch until the end of time crying their name and with such damaged self esteem that you can’t even consider having a better future with someone else.
In any case, whether it was little smears he dropped around your social context to “lower your social stock price” throughout your marriage and ever since and to paint you as awful and unlovable or the way he scared off your social contacts or picked fights before social events to socially isolate you or the way he sawed away at your sexual self esteem for years to make you feel unattractive or just the way he sowed trauma and chaos in your life so you’d be too exhausted and distracted to imagine a better future, chances are he– like every abuser who ever lived– invested in preventing you from replacing him. This may also be why he was so acrimonious in the divorce.
Anyway, when dealing with clinical narcissists, it’s kind of a safety strategy to consider the risk that they will project and displace their own motives onto you. So if you enjoy false accusations and being subjected to the toxic stew of both his paranoid narc rage AND smugly delusional sense of centrality and having him tell everyone you know in common that you’re attempting to control and possess him, go ahead and deliver the news to him.
Chances are that, being a narcissist, he’ll eventually google himself and run across the site or one of his flying monkeys will tell him about it at which point he’ll either hope you haven’t seen it yet and try to get it removed or else you’re still going to be subjected to false suspicions, rage and smugness. But, in the latter situation, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of brusquely redirecting his interrogation to concerns over whether the kids have seen the post and bring the concerns to your lawyer.
I think you should probably bring the concerns to your lawyer anyway because it’s possible the types of people who post shade or comment on these “don’t date him” sites are crazy bunny boiler types and you don’t want your kids caught in the crossfire in case one of these nuts decides to attack him when your children are around.
As they get worse and more dysfunctional, many people with personality disorders– once they stop trying to fake normalcy and respectability by hiding in partnerships with decent people– have a way of eventually “finding their own level” and consorting with other, equally disordered trash or sometimes people even more dangerous than themselves. So I think battening the hatches and protecting yourself and your kids is probably priority #1.
“even if they do abandon you, they want the assurance that you’ll be left prostrate in a ditch until the end of time crying their name and with such damaged self esteem that you can’t even consider having a better future with someone else.”
This is SO on point with my FW.
He actually can’t deal with the thought of me being ok without him at all, even while I am single. The idea that I could be over here alone, healing and maybe being moderately happy? That idea eats him alive.
I think his greatest fear would be me finding someone that I am better off with than him. I think that idea scares him so much he can’t even think about it.
In the meantime, he’s moved on…twice. His affair fizzled after many years before he even moved out of the marital home, then he did move out, dated a ton, and now has a serious gf. But god forbid I be happy alone.
In the meantime, me finding someone better than him? I’m not currently interested but if I were, it wouldn’t be hard to find a better partner. If they were kind-ish even 50% of the time, that is a vast improvement. In the meantime for him to find someone as great as me wasn’t quite as easy because I’m great. His gf seems pretty nice from what I have heard. And she looks so much like me that multiple people have commented. (You wouldn’t think we are twins or anything, but are just very similar in superficial looks, hair color, face shape, hair style, clothing choices. It’s WEIRD.)
You wrote: “I think that idea scares him so much he can’t even think about it.”
You know, something that’s occurred to me that might not be so obvious to anyone on the traumatic receiving end of this treatment is that the FWs who do the really radical Houdini abandonment routine and, without warning, disappear overnight in a puff of smoke, suddenly move to Timbuktu with a schmoopie and appear to never, ever look back might be– at least according to the masked dependency theory– trying not to think about it (their partners ever moving on).
It might even be a strategy to keep themselves out of jail.
Wow. Yeah. That makes some sense as to why some FWs go that route. Well beyond the obvious aspect of them moving to Timbuktu means not facing up to what they did in their hometown/social circle. No one needs to know they abandoned a spouse and 4 kids without warning.
Mine sort of pulled a Houdini on a serious gf in his past. Broke up with her via phone while she was at work, left before she got home and then never spoke to her again. He was immediately deeply involved with someone else. Probably monkey-branched.
It’s unfortunate because while I recognize the utter shock and pain of those chumps who got the Houdini treatment, and don’t want to say “oh I wish that happened to me”, I would love it if he’d leave me alone now. What I got was the polar opposite. He got full on involved with the AP and meant to leave me for her, but they broke up. Now he is with the new gf and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are engaged before our divorce is finalized. YET he’s enraged by the fact that I am disengaged from him. He wants to be friends, despite not acting like a friend, it’s more like “I want access to you and the nice things you can bring to my life but I don’t want to have to treat you with a modicum of respect” . He wants to know what I am doing for x holiday, or wants to chat. When I ignore him, it’s rage or tears. Usually both, in a cycle.
I have such a hard time understanding it. “How can you be so upset about losing me when you clearly wanted to be with someone else?” But it’s just another level of wanting cake, I suppose.
I’m not interested in dating. As I type that I can’t be sure WHY I say that, and that bugs me.
I mean, sure, not dating NOW is a wise choice that I’d never regret. Give myself time to heal, fix my picker. Besides, I have kids, they already deal with the FWs dating life and struggle, I don’t need to add to it. I will never regret not dating NOW.
But when I say I am not interested, I don’t mean just now. I am not sure if I will ever want to. And if I truly don’t want to, that is ok. I see women here and other places online that say they aren’t dating and they love it. But what concerns me is that I can’t say for sure that my reluctance isn’t entirely based on the worry of what he would do if he found out. Some amount of my lack of interest is likely based on my not wanting to deal with whatever drama would come with it. In so many ways, it doesn’t matter because I do NOT want to date NOW. But the idea that he has anything to do with that stance irks me beyond measure.
Sounds like you’ve had your consciousness hacked by the standard protracted terror program. His compulsion to breath down your neck suggests he knows that, if you escape and are left to your own devices, you’ll eventually regain your perspective and be able to hear your own thoughts again. This could cause a bigger shift in how you feel than you even realize. Perhaps he knows this better than you do and NC would be the end of his soul control so he keeps trying to reboot the terror app.
Masking dependancy, territoriality, one sided monogamy…Oh HOAC, you did it again and explained to me more of the reality that I suffered back in the day.
These ideas you shared in this post (although Ive read your posts a long time and absorbed bits and pieces along the way) go a long way to help me understand. I fear the “untangling the skein” title but even in my totally new life (or perhaps because I have a whole new safe life) I still bend towards trying to see patterns in his behavior to understand the why’s.
He and I were rather young when we met (19 & 20) and as he railed against growing-up and developing actual, functioning coping skills, there was a lot of dependance on me to deal with all the adulting required in life. I was a World Class Wife Appliance. He had a VERY strong history of wanting to “have his cake and eat it too”…to have things that were truly mutually exclusive (like he wanted to have lots of kids with zero responsibility as a father – just one example)
My mind gets blown that the same person who criticized and belittled me in every possible way was also territorial and had any concern over his turf being maintained…and yet, his behavior showed that this was likely true.
The idea that they get worse is a scary to me but I’ve seen it’s true. I recently watched my narc dad implode at the very end of his life…there was only anger and blame, no self actualization.
Because my cheater died, I never had to deal with him watching me get a new partner. Ironically, there was a specific demographic of person he had deep jealousy and contempt for and my new partner falls into that demographic. I am certain that even though Cheater was the abuser in our marriage, him seeing that my new partner (now husband) would have wildly set him off – it would have been very bad.
I didn’t want him to die, I wanted him to be kind and to grow with me in a loving marriage. I didnt want my now-husband to be discarded by a narc who broke his heart then blamed him, I wanted him and first wife to live a lovely life. We are living a life of “making lemonade” from our lemons and it is really wonderful. There are times when I forget how fortunate I am to have escaped the Hell of life with a disordered person…reading things like this dont just inform or remind me, they give we a feeling of being missed by a bullet going by my head so close that I can hear it.
Public Service Announcement: Success is not defined by getting a new partner, it’s defined by surviving and living your best life in whatever circumstances that is.
I love your public service announcement. I also love your alternate universe/better world wishes. Whenever I find myself stupidly fantasizing about magical revenge scenarios, it occurs to me that, if I really had magical powers, wouldn’t I go back and undo whatever horror show abuse made someone an awful person to begin with so that they would have ended up a good person and the crappy things they did would never have happened? My kids and I once ran the “baby Hitler” scenario and we all agreed that, to save millions of people, there was no need to kill baby Hitler but instead he could be kidnapped at birth, placed in an empathic family and spared from the horrendous abuse he witnessed and experienced.
When I worked in advocacy and first read about Fromm’s theory of masked dependency being applied to batterers, we joked that the concept seemed to come with a halo of light around it and a choir of angels, like “Aaahhh! The idea of the century!” It really explains so much. No surprise since Fromm’s fascination with deconstructing evil was inspired by first hand experience escaping the Nazis. If you want a view that helps survivors, ask a survivor.
But even so I have kind of mixed feelings about skein untangling as well, mostly because the first information people usually run across when in frantic untangling mode is a bunch of abuser-coddling, victim-blaming psychobabble. But because that’s the victim-blamey world we live in and because every victim-blaming abuse apologist loves to weaponize junk science in service of heaping shame and contempt on survivors and negating their credibility, as a survivors’ advocate, I learned to fight psychobabble fire with better peer-reviewed fire.
Plus it’s just snarky fun to trump apologists/blamers at their own weaponized pop science game. Also pretty easy because it turns out there actually is greater empirical value to non-blaming humanist theories and theories that put the full onus on perpetrators (a necessary exercise in order to remove the “share” of false blame that’s typically heaped on victims) while the blaming or “split-blame” nonsense invariably gets debunked over time or its most rabid proponents get old and die off (Planck’s principle) and paves the way for better ideas.
Also since we’re in an age when laws and policies are sometimes based on social science, we can’t actively participate in democracy if we can’t tell the difference between junk science and valid theory. A lot of survivors find it healing to get involved in social justice and trying to improve legal support for victims at which point they’ll be facing off with the top shelf shitheads with multiple degrees who weaponize science to lobby on behalf of perps.
Hi HOAC 😃 my fw is doing that! He is surrounding himself with disordered people and literal criminals — for instance, the brother of the head of the most notorious Colombian cocaine cartel (!!). It has been such a spectacular fall for him. I still can’t quite believe it.
Wow, that is kind of bottom of the barrel. Where is there left for him to sink other than hooking up with a secret society of cannibals or Michael Jackson superfans? I hope you’re safe.
It’s hard to determine risk because his behaviors since leaving are so extremely different. There’s no precedent and no sense of where the bottom could be.
That guy is a walking no-go zone.
I am the original letter writer and wanted to thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I am currently reading “why does he do that” about abusive men and your experience echos a lot of what I am learning in the book. Their thought patterns are so alien to me and I’m learning about this…. I also hadn’t given too much thought to the future and patterns getting even worse and their partners too… this has definitely given me something to think about. All the more reason to uphold NC/grey rocking.
I’m so glad you decided to share because there’s a lot of food for thought in your experience and it really sets off a lot of light bulbs as you can see from all the comments.
Lundy Bancroft’s book is an amazing resource. I think he truly knows his stuff which makes it all the more amazing to me how he was able to boil all that dense clinical information down to the kind of bite-sized, accessible brass tacks that people in the midst of mind-melting trauma can more easily absorb and make use of. Being “terse” actually takes an enormous amount of thought and work so I think it was incredibly generous for Bancroft to do this. But since you’ve mightily escaped and might now have a bit more safety and bandwidth to absorb more nitty-gritty presentations of abuser psychology, a more clinical and detailed presentation of arguments that are very similar to Bancroft’s can be found in the book The Batterer by criminologists Donald Dutton and Susan Golant.
In terms of the dynamics of abuse and abuser psychology, the devil is definitely in the details and I think you’d probably get a massive amount of insights from reading it that might help you pragmatically preempt whatever nonsense your ex might come up with next. Call it the Sun Tzu Art of War battle planning for coparenting with an abusive FW.
But, along with the recommendation, I feel I should give a big caveat about one of the authors of this book. Since he completed his important prison studies of batterers and co-authored this book and other important domestic abuse research, Dutton did an ugly 180 and became an apologist for the manosphere and so-called “men’s rights movement.” I suspect he went off the deep end when he was not only caught trying to cheat on his wife but credibly charged with sexually harassing one of his grad students. But sadly for those of us who had once used his work as a guide for advocacy, what that means is that he was likely always a wolf in sheep’s clothing and only pretending to be some hero for battered women.
Isn’t that just like an abuser to elaborately play “rescuer” in order to get laid? And then when the ruse didn’t work, Dutton threw off the disguise and came out as a full blown creep. Like every abuser ever. God that was such a disappointing event in the advocacy realm since Dutton’s work had always resonated so much with survivors.
But there’s some consolation in the idea that everything good he did before his big 180 was a matter of riding the coattails of more worthy female colleagues and coauthors like Golant and Susan Painter. It might be the case that all the really brilliant and groundbreaking insights in The Batterer are still valid because they probably didn’t come from Sir Douche Dutton himself.
For instance, the concept of “masked dependency” I mentioned in the earlier comment which is featured in The Batterer. I don’t remember the name of the scientist who said that “facts cluster around a good theory” but so many facts in DV research tend to cluster around that idea. I would even call it revolutionary and if I had to identify any new idea that resonated most with the experiences of many survivors of DV, it was that particular concept. Interestingly, the masked dependency concept was borrowed from a sociopolitical theory of 20th century social psychologist Erich Fromm (in part, he used it to explain Nazis’ psychological dependence on their own victims) and quite brilliantly applied to the psychology of domestic abusers. So there’s a kind of macro/micro genius to the concept that can explain not only interpersonal abuse but also political atrocity.
But I now think that amalgamated “wow” concept probably came from Dutton’s co-researcher Susan Painter, not Dutton himself. It has feminist thinking all over it. And I’m betting Painter, like Golant, probably needed a male co-author to even get her controversially “feminist” ideas published in the first place so… fuck Dutton. He may only have been a beard for better researchers to get their work published and the book is still a font of mind-blowing insights.
Anyway, I recommend reading the book. It’s not that long, is written pretty accessibly and contains a lot of “oh shit wow” insights backed up with a lot of good science that Lundy Bancroft used in forming the wonderful and helpful gem of a book he wrote.
Yes, the last paragraph is what my therapist told me. She said that he will only get worse over time, and the type of woman he will date will be nothing like me in their values and approach. I was a partner of several decades, very traditional. Not the next partnership. They will be looking for immediate satisfaction, as will he. And when the relationship is no longer what one or the other wants, they will discard and look for the next one.
But yes, if my kids (now grown) had to visit him, there would be concerns.
I am the original letter writer- this is not at all something I have given too much thought to at all but it makes sense and is something I should start protecting myself against now
I imagine there are several factors by which abusers and cheaters lay their own traps after being forced to leave the cover of a long term relationship. For one, abusive types are typically spiraling out in blameshifting and enraged at former victims and, unless they’re especially cold-blooded, sociopathic cyborgs with enough self control to conceal that rage, tend seek solace and validation for that hatred and resentment. But– oops– only other bent people aren’t going to react to that level of blamey whining with fear or boredom or suspicion that the individual is just playing victim to their own victim. And by “bent,” it could be someone with an agenda just playing along as part of a con or someone who needs to play “rescuer” because they’ve got catastrophically impaired self esteem or someone who gets off on hearing former partners bashed because they’re either ex-bashing abusers themselves or it makes them feel like they’re “winning” in comparison. No matter how you slice it, it’s bad news.
I keep thinking of Paul Rudd’s character from Forty Year Old Virgin who’s hatefully obsessed with an ex who wants nothing to do with him. He’s unable to move on because, every time he meets a woman, who goes into a diatribe against his ex. But at last he meets someone who’s equally hatefully obsessed with an ex and they bond over their respective obsession and hatred. The story line is treated as purely comedic but, since Rudd’s character is depicted as an actual stalker, I thought the characterization was dangerously whitewashing and minimizing. But the vignette did make a valid point that the only people who are going to be into that are sick twists in their own rights.
That’s a good insight. Anyone that is going to embrace their blame-and-game has their own wired-in issues.
I haven’t done much dating, but what little I’ve done, it seems like talk about your ex or deceased spouse is nearly always on the agenda for the first date, which personally is something I’d rather not dig into at that point. I’d rather meet someone as they are with most of that to the side until there’s much more history and connection. So, watch for an orange or red flag if they start that. Got it.
I wish there was some sure-fire algorithm or system to distinguish between people– maybe men in particular– who are honestly confiding traumatic mistreatment in past relationships and abusers who blameshift with fabricated grounds for victimizing past partners. But since abusers are like viruses and constantly mutating in order to evade human defenses, the second anyone formed a list of telltale ways to figure out the difference, a certain number of abusers would change their approach in order to avoid tripping alarms.
As it is some abusive types are slick enough to avoid waving red flags and may avoid talking about exes at first. If they say anything at all, they may only dribble out little bits of information over time, sort of tersely dropping sad hints about an ex’s mental health challenges or “behavioral issues.” By the same token, some violent abusers know better than to mention that they grew up with family violence since more people have become aware of generational patterns.
So what options do we have to navigate with other than to take a lot of time to vet the daylights out of everyone and going on gut instinct?
Kermit! From my experience, even eye contact is kibbles and power. My 2nd cheater plays mind games and he will stare at you to read your mind, then start the drama ANY WAY POSSIBLE to trigger you and SUCK you back into his orbit, Even if only in your mind. It is a game as even negative reactions my cheater loved. Anything at all. So I say the least minimal contact or zero zero zero is the only way forward. Yes my #2 cheater is married to his OW but he has radar out for any weakness on my part and has been invading my church looking for some kibbles, anything from me as he shows off his20 year younger foreign wife.. Tomorrow my grandson is getting baptised and I’m dreading breathing the same air even. It’s one year post Divorce and I am not at meh..I am afraid of him and all the violence in him..but he appears sweet and gentle. My grandson loves him to this day, age 13, as cheater is playful and fun and has been in his life since birth. Nothing I can do but to be there and pray. …but again Kernit, don’t be helpful and stay far away no matter what the reason.
2x, can you ask someone to sit with and stand with you for the entirety of the church visit? And prepare a list of phrases to use if he tries to connect with you in any way? Be prepared with what to say to take evasive action, even it it’s just, “Excuse me for a moment,” and you simply don’t return.
Will you be expected to be in pictures together? Best to have a plan if you can.
I hope all goes well and there is more joy than pain.
Good friend! The unthinkable happened in that both my Xs were in the santuary at the same time for my grandsons baptism. I hadn’t seen #1 cheaters in 5 years and #2 cheater we have been No contact 2 years. I did get to see wiftress for the very first time …and X out of the corner of my eye, surrounded by my Switzerland friends from church taking Christmas photos on the stage after the baptism. My first X left quickly so he was gone and out the door. I did well, kept far away, had friends that spotted for me and helped me stay safely far away. I am safe and home but emotionally drained. I never thought I could get through such a day but God gave me safety and dignity. I can tell you that wifetress and X deserve each other. My #2 cheater joined her culture and dresses Filipino and stays with the Filipino group…taking on everything she is. Tracy mentioned how these cheaters are empty themselves so attach to others lives and cultures..that is so true. This day is over. My friends tell me now I am strong 💪 and I can do it. I say I’d rather be alone than with either man. I left the tears and lies to others. Thank you Good Friend for holding my space and helping me to let go of my fear of violence as much as possible. Therapy continues and no contact has saved me in the end.
Change your name to 2xChamp! Thanks for the update. I’m so glad you had a good experience, that your friends were there for you, and the event went well. However, my advice is not to let go of fear, and I hope you will seek better advice from experts in violence so that you remain safe. Just as I never considered Ex would cheat, I also didn’t realize he’d assault both me and tween, that he contemplated doing worse, and might have, if I didn’t implement precautions and safety measures, and report him. The danger is all too real. I’ll pass along the recommendation from someone here, which is Gavin de Becker’s book “The Gift of Fear.” I hope you stay safe and have many more family events to enjoy.
GOODFRIEND, My lesson yesterday at church is that #1 cheater is old, sick, obese, 71 it’s hard for him to move. I saw he and wifetress and she had a brain tumor removed and looks tired and worn out also. I think I can sit in the same room now so we can be together but Grey rock on all occasions. I felt zero saying hi yesterday..more pity. My fear of that bully waa gone yesterday..he can’t catch me and he has no reason to shoot me anymore for being in the way of true love.
My second cheater I cam beer let go of healthy fear, never. He will always be unstable, have a gun on him and he WILL get tired of his new wife as he still has a basement in his mind and woman are objects. He is also 9
Younger than I am and with his 100 year old family members, he will likely outlive me. I will be no contact forever and fear will remain in place no matter what others say
NO ONE knows that secret abusive mind behind the charm. He attends multiple churches in our community so I’d necrr l know where or when he’ll show up, like yesterday. Unless I leave my family or change denominations, I will have to spot him and stay away forever. THANKFULLY, 32 years ago before I married him, I insisted on a vasectomy..so no children with him. One smart move. So yes you are right. Forever I must be safe from cheater 2. Thank you for your replies yesterday and today. I did mention I talked with my Switzerland friend and told her why I could no longer be close tp her as her husband was counseling my Xhusband as his Elder in the church. I told her that was nice of him but I could no longer be close friends for my safety and confidentiality. I was kind but clear. She said she hopes I get better so we can be friends again. I know its Not possible to be as close as we were ever again..very sad isn’t it?
GoodFriend, how very kind of you to write to me. I am very afraid of #2X as he is always armed and he is unstable. It is 2 years from D day and one since final divorce. I have been zero contact. If he approaches me, I will have to leave quickly and file another restraining order. So my tactic is to keep far away. I’m praying he will not be there in church this week as even though our marriage was 32 years, he has no biological connections I will keep that perfect reply very handy..could you excuse me for a monent to use if he approaches the Family or anyone I am talking to. Offensive moves are safest rather than waiting for his approach as i cannot even speak to him. I did lock him out 2 yesrs ago and he never forgets. So I’ll be on high alert for 2 hours and my car will be parked close by for escape if needed. I’ve been so happy and at peace without his rages and covert abuse. It’s a shame it’s never over unless I move away from my beloved grandchildren. I just can’t do that. Thank you Good Friend for caring. Some wingnuts you can’t play with even for a second. And after all this anxiety, he might not show up at all and I’ll have a perfectly sacred visit. It’s sad though…
The fact that he’s armed makes this even more frightening. There are people on this site who are more knowledgeable about domestic violence and escalation and who can give you better advice. I also hope you call the hotlines and local organizations that deal with domestic violence and can help you, whether or not he’s been physically aggressive.
The few times the court allowed X to come into the home, I hired an armed body guard to be with me. I also had the police on civil standby, which meant an officer actually came to the house to observe. These might be options for you.
I hope you will write back and let us know that things went safely and smoothly.
I’m surprised no one has brought this up. DO NOT TELL HIM BC IT BREAKS THE RULES OF THESE SITES! There are no screenshots and no telling rules for a very good reason—safety! There are countless stories of women telling men when they are posted and then BAD things happening to those that either posted or commented! Why oh why would you risk the safety of others? And for what? Whether you join the discussion and spill the beans on your FW is entirely up to you. But you cannot expose the posters!
No doubt there are women who post falsely. But they are not the majority and these sites and apps exist for a reason. No doubt some of the old school chumps here could have benefited in some way with their existence years ago. And I for one appreciate them as I navigate in the dating world.
💯 Chump Lady agrees and pinned a warning about privacy rules at the top of this post.
Are We Dating The Same Guy? local city-based groups are a total lifesaver for women. They are not to be conflated with “cheater exposure” scam sites or whatever – they are ::by and for women who are dating in a specific location:: and they are extremely careful not to defame by focusing on public record and verified primary source information whenever possible. The mods do not approve posts that fail to meet a credibility standard.
While I do not date because I still have minor children in my home and have decentered men, my childfree BFF uses online dating – so our local AWDTSG? group has protected her from meeting up with predatory men, literally more times than she can count. She avoided dating several men with histories of sexual misconduct against children, batterers, stalkers, married men, men living with their girlfriends who had just given birth, a man who had been charged with drugging women, a man who had been charged with secretly filming women, just to name but a few.
A friend of mine saw a post about a guy that she had a date scheduled with in 3 days. He had a record of assault. These sites can be very helpful.
I’ve never seen one of these sites so I don’t know anything about them; thanks for the PSA, echoed above by others.
The internet has created a need for ongoing education about protecting oneself and others, as well a cottage industry for those who want to do harm…
I agree with CL that some of these sites are scams and traps but I also agree with you that these sites can still have value as a form of underground resistance and communication.
Unfortunately it’s difficult to tell the difference which is always the problem with vigilantism. But as long as the justice system continues to do such a deplorable job of enforcing against domestic and sexual abuse, as long as victims get professionally and socially blacklisted for coming forward and as long as abusers are easily able to weaponize the court system, activism will invariably take vigilante forms. For instance, as the #MeToo movement ramped up, there were several “shitty men” lists circulated on the internet in regards to various professions starting with “shitty media men” where people who’d experienced harassment or assault in those industries would name perpetrators and anonymously report their experiences.
These spreadsheet lists kept growing and growing as more and more victims began naming names but ultimately they had very short lives on the web and were soon removed due to threats of lawsuits though some of these lists are still in private circulation– passed from hand to hand in secret. All the same, the wave of lists made a certain amount of real world impact. At some point there was a “shitty men in architecture” spreadsheet which was created after allegations surfaced against the “starchitect” Richard Meier (famous for modernist structures that look like urinals or like they’re clad in bathroom tile). That list caused an explosion at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design with allegations surfacing against over a dozen professors and students and eventually led to the GSD dean resigning.
But, to many people, the impact was really just tip of the iceberg, didn’t change much and those fields remain elitist, pervy and racist old white boys clubs. The goal of underground resistance shouldn’t be limited to being merely a pressure valve for frustration and trauma but should always be to change the official system.
I never looked on the sites for my ex because I knew how he was and I couldn’t care less about him. And now that he’s been dead close to 3 years, it’s a moot point.
However I am here to celebrate this line “this guy is a dick dribble stain on the crusty sofa of life.” Thank you, Tracy, for my laugh of the day.
I’ve never seen one of these sites so I don’t know anything about them; thanks for the PSA, echoed above by others.
The internet has created a need for ongoing education about protecting oneself and others, as well a cottage industry for those who want to do harm…
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Hi Valerie! This reply was for Big City Chump….oops!
❤️
As an aside, scheduled for release in 2025:”December 25, 2024: Versatile actor and director Yissendy Trinidad […] has started filming the anticipated new romantic comedy [sic?], Are We Dating the Same Guy? The film follows Emily, a software engineer who creates a sisterhood app that allows women to review men they’ve dated. The app exposes a serial cheater and launches a movement, while threatening Emily’s career and relationships.”
https://www.martincid.com/movies/actors-movies-en/yissendy-trinidad-shares-her-vision-for-are-we-dating-the-same-guy/
Kermit, if you’re itching to tell, maybe it would help to tell a friend or relative, but only one who can be trusted not to talk to him about it. I found that talking trash about the FW to other people was a good substitute for needling the FW himself. I still get asked about FW by certain people who like to diss him, and I oblige them and we have a laugh at his expense, but it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. Eventually you will get to that point. In the meantime, do you have anybody like that in your life, somebody who will enjoy the schadenfreude of FW being exposed as a creep with you?
As others have said, you need to protect the privacy and safety of the women who spoke out about him. You don’t want FW figuring out who they are. So please keep mum about it.
My recommendation is to write FW a letter or journal about this. It really helped me express alll my anger. Of course don’t send anything. Just keep writing under your rage/vindictiveness / concern have faded and you’re back to just knowing he’s a fuckwit. Because he is.
Agreed! writing helps. Here and in a journal and letters never sent. Someone on a different group of mine wrote a letter to herself of all the ways she wanted to be treated and things she wanted to do, and then started doing them herself. Something like that. I like that, too.
I am the original letter writer- Thank you so much CL and to everyone who commented! I wish I could reply to each of you individually- your comments have been super helpful to me!
“Really, it’s not your concern. You can’t save the others and you have a new life to build, so focus your precious energies accordingly.“ – C.L.
Quoted for truth! ❤️🔥
This. Is. Not. Your. Problem.
I posted the Wifetress on “She’s a Homewrecker” many years ago after she introduced Chlamydia to FW and he passed it on to yours truly. I filed for divorce while downing doxycycline on my way out of the gynecologist’s office. It was not my finest moment of grace, but the post was thoughtfully and devastatingly composed. They did have to pay a hefty scrub fee, which made me deliriously happy. Their miserable marriage also makes me deliriously happy. My life is quite peaceful without them in it.