Does Your Cheater Hold a Grudge?
The Friday Challenge question is did your cheater hold a grudge? Are they still mad at you for some slight?
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Hi Chump Lady,
I just saw this article. Apparently James Cameron is still angry about a joke Amy Poehler made about him at the Golden Globes THIRTEEN YEARS AGO.
He has a long storied history of cheating… starting with his first wife then jumping from woman to woman associated with every film he’s been tied with — even Kathryn Bigelow was an affair partner at one point.
Here’s the joke:
Poehler, addressing the controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty’s torture scenes, quipped: “When it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron.” (Referring to Kathryn Bigelow — his ex wife. They were married 1989-1991.)
There is nothing wrong with Amy Poehler’s joke. It’s hilarious. But it pisses off a FW to be made the butt of a joke for his shit behavior.
Maybe we can do a Friday challenge — what did you do that got under a FW’s skin and maybe even triggered a childlike temper tantrum like little Jimmy Cameron here?
MichelleShocked
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Dear MichelleShocked,
You win! Thin-skinned narcissists for the Friday Challenge! If you prick a prick, do they not bleed? FWs have feelings too, you know. How dare you insinuate that they were anything less than stellar? Didn’t you get the PR pamphlet? Why haven’t you signed the NDA?
FWs hate ridicule.
It’s their Kryptonite. It’s one thing to be grandiose and everyone around eats the shit sandwich of that grandiosity. They might politely go along with it. Or even believe the spin. Or think rebellious thoughts to themselves. But it’s quite another thing to make a joke that other people LAUGH at!
Now the spell of their superiority is broken. The entitlement is questioned. We cannot have that. So like any other tinpot dictator, they have a list of their enemies cross-referenced by crime.
Amy Poehler had the bravery to observe that marriage to a serial cheater is torture. And make a joke. Heads must roll!
She pulled his mask down and laughed. The mask he wears of Really Important Person You Mustn’t Question. Or Enviable Prize Man Every Woman Wishes She Had. That joke made his predation a lot harder. So of course he remembers it 13 years later.
So, CN, did your cheater hold a grudge?
Are you still paying for some crime? Did you laugh at the Emperor/Empress?
TGIF!
hahaha- this made me laugh . Mine acts wounded if I remind him that “X” “Y” or “Z” is a result of his deliberate decisions and actions. It’s amazing how actual consequences turn them into victims.
Nailed it braincramped! I was asked not to be so rude on a recent email where I politely asked him to return the photograph albums I gave him eighteen months ago for him to copy (something he had written into our divorce contract, and which he had to do within two months of our divorce which was final in July 2024!)
I replied: ‘Please resist the desire to tell me how to behave, something you are in no position to do. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we can be on friendly terms. You forfeited that right when you chose to lie, cheat and abandon your family.’
Shockingly, I haven’t had a reply ….
Oh yes that feels very familiar! My philandering ex never forgave me for passing an assessment he failed.(we were in the same profession) In his view I should have declined it. In fact 6 months later I did withdraw from the same organisation after the same thing happened with another qualification, such was his distress (fool me!). When the opportunity came for a qualification with another organisation I decided not to go for it. But this was NOT ENOUGH and still mentioned many years later as a MAJOR FAILING on my part that led him to have a secret affair for 18 months and then ask for me to engage in polyamory. He repeatedly said that our subsequent divorce was CO-CREATED as a result of my behaviour. the only benefit of these experiences is that I now have very sharply attuned antennae for this sort of behaviour by people in my own circle or other contexts. As a close friend put it – he felt humiliated and could not bear this. People who are not narcissists tend, rather, to be humbled and learn from failure.
Divorce was “co-created”?? Oh, that’s so funny!
If grudge-holding was an olympic sport, my STBX would bring home the gold, silver, copper and platinum medals. The latter invented just for him, because speshul. He is still pissed off at people who insulted or wronged him in middle school, high school and college..and he’s been retired for 10 years.
My FW’s flying monkey loony bin sister, who was in on all the cheating shenanigans of course, appears to be holding a grudge on FWs behalf. My daughter reported to me at FW’s family xmas get together, her aunty told her in a very forlorn manner she found some wedding photos of FW and me, so wrapped them up and gave them to him for xmas. It was the least she could do after I had taken everything from the poor man including all his precious mementos. My daughter was trying not to laugh – aside from the fact aunty had knocked back about 5 reds – because whatever photos I have are sitting in a box in a shed somewhere “under a pile of dust” as my daughter described it, not exactly being deliberately withheld, although I am pretty sure I gave all the albums to FW due to my care factor being zero.
Every imagined slight or snub went onto his add-a-grudge necklace. They all came pouring out during the fig-leaf marriage counseling that he insisted on after he had already decided he wanted to leave me for his side piece. They were unbelievably trivial – I didn’t like a sitcom he liked, I used to correct his stories (when he lied to make them better) (but stopped a decade before when he complained)…what he really resented was I was professionally very successful, and he couldn’t hold down a job.
It has been 15 years and my ex and his flying monkey family is STILL holding a grudge. They are mad because not only did the affairs come to light, their dirty secrets and poor business dealings were revealed. The carefully curated “perfect family” appearance was no longer so perfect.
We live in a rural small town and I still hear things he and the family has said about me. I also hear about the 💩show life with the Wifetress is. He has cheated multiple times, she is 65 and he is 54 and they are broke. At those ages, they should be nearing retirement. 🤷♀️
There was a whole pile of grudges. Reportedly, I was 100% behind the failure of the marriage from courtship to abandonment, a whole litany of injustices. He had religious reasons for divorcing me as a rebel wife who wouldn’t reconcile. His family circled the wagons and backed him up. He related all that to his attorney, who, of course, was just doing his job and began lobbing the accusations and threats towards me.
But in time, his own attorney figured out who was who and told mine that I must be a saint to have been married so long to his client. They got it done, and the marriage was over.
Reportedly, he went to a family wedding sometime later with his lady friend and was all emotional again about how I had destroyed the marriage and violated our vows. I don’t know what his lady friend thought of that, but one of his relatives called me. Well, not really my committee, thank you. That just confirmed that I don’t need to be in contact.
I have a friend who is a retired pastor and licensed therapist. He worked at the state mental hospital for about 10 years, then became a pastor with a side practice in therapy. He knows my story very well and once reminded me that part of these sorts of things is for the guilty party to rewrite the narrative to make themselves the victim. Yes, got it. But he reminded me that I can choose reality and create another chapter, a good one. And I did.
My first Mother’s Day, he gave me nothing. The next day, I texted a friend of mine who also recently had a baby about klootzak saying, “You’re not MY mother!” when I asked why he hadn’t even gotten so much as a card. She responded, “What an asshole!” Klootzak decided to read my texts at some point and was irate that she said he was an asshole and was miffed that she and I continued to be friends. He was angry at me for remaining friends with someone who had called him an asshole in response to him acting like an asshole. I am sure he hates her to this day.
About a month before FW left me, his uncle died. I bought a sympathy card for the Uncle’s daughter (FW’s cousin) and asked FW to sign it. He proceeded to comment on how he never liked his cousin very much. I remember thinking it seemed an inappropriate time to comment on this because her dad had just died and shouldn’t one just feel compassion at a time like that? Anyway, he said his brother and her were always close but that he just wasn’t. I asked him why. He said she always acted like a “know-it-all”. I know his cousin. She definitely has an air of confidence about her. She strikes me as a confident woman and a woman who knows what she wants/likes. I am not particularly close with her but I never had a problem with her either. She was always pleasant with me and we got along just fine the few times we would see each other. I remember thinking how weird it was that he would bring up how he “never really got along with her” when I asked him to sign a sympathy card for her when her dad just died. He ended up saying, “If you want me to sign it, I’ll sign it.” I think I said something like, “Look buddy, if you don’t want to sign it, don’t sign it. I don’t care.” I signed it for myself. Jeez. He ended up signing it. It is one of many moments I just shake my head about. Death is one of those times you think makes people feel humble, sympathy, less petty, see the “big picture”, etc. But when I asked “Can you sign this sympathy card?” My ex-FW responded, “We never really got along.” Am I overreacting thinking that is weird and a bit cold?
After the divorce was final, mine blocked me on everything. I think it’s because I’m the one that was hurt the most by his infidelities, lies, secret cell phone, etc. and I got half of “his” stuff!!! I know exactly the kind of person he is. His mask is off. After 30 years, I am free of him and I have no problem telling people why.