Don’t Get Mad, Build an Organization
Everyone at CN knows what a meat grinder divorce is, particularly after you’ve been chumped. Can you imagine having the guts to build an organization so that others going through it have an easier time?
In our latest Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast episode, we talk with Christina Pavlina, a cofounder and the executive director of Jane Does Well — a nonprofit that helps women navigate divorce. Christina and Sue Kisiday started the group after their own divorces, and now Jane Does Well is a national outreach organization. Beyond social meet-ups, single mom support groups, yoga, and divorce education workshops, they’re also advocating for legislation and changes to make the family courts more accessible and fair to women. Mighty!
You might remember last spring, I was invited to Boston to speak at one of their fundraisers. I wasn’t familiar with their organization and after I met them I was just agog at what these two women have achieved. I don’t want to spoil the podcast (please subscribe and support!) — but here’s one gem — thanks to their work over ONE MILLION kids in Massachusetts are getting more child support. Holy advocacy Batman!
And they’ve replicated their success — there are now Jane Does Well outlets in 25 states. And the most amazing thing is, all of the services they provide are FREE, thanks to the support of their donors.
I love when the bitter bunnies organize. That’s why I named this episode, “Don’t Get Mad, Build an Organization.” Christina and Sue built a community and they listened to what their members were experiencing, then put boots on the ground to change things. Huzzah!
Check out Jane Does Well! It’s for women (maybe a chump fellow will create a Jim Does Well soon). Look to see if they’ve got a chapter near you or consider starting one.
Speaking of changing things, on Friday, Sarah and I are interviewing blog friend, Dr. George Simon. I’ve often recommended his books here, particularly, In Sheep’s Clothing. Dr. Simon is the OG untangler of fuckupedness. He gave us: “It’s not that they don’t see, they disagree.” He decodes manipulative people and he takes on the therapy industry for not being attuned to character disorder.
Please let me know in the comments if you’ve got questions you’d like us to ask Dr. Simon.
You can read my early interview with him here, on how to divorce a narcissist.
And apologies for the irregular podcast schedule. I’ve been traveling and Sarah has been (and still is) in the middle of a hellish house move. We’re now on a regular schedule and will drop new podcasts on Tuesdays. Patrons, however, get them early and ad-free. We did a bit of rebranding for SEO. The full title is now Infidelity Survival Stories: Tell Me How You’re Mighty. (Nothing changes if you’re subscribing.) Please follow us and if you enjoy the podcasts, review too. Thanks!
Im curious how they handle it when a perptrator of abuse comes into their midst claiming victimhood. Im sure they are forever tuned to the red flags of someone full of DARVO, personality disorder. A person like that would be toxic in that setting. Good on them for such a mighty feat!
I worried about that a lot when I first started working as an advocate for DV survivors. But over time I was reassured that the difference between a genuine victim and a fake one is pretty stark.
For one, perps-posing-as-victims (usually in the course of trying to build cases against their own victims) can’t stop themselves from picking fights with actual victims over definitions of what constitutes abuse. One of the requirements for working with this service was reading mountains of literature and research on abuser psychology and I think one of the main takeaways from this body of research is that abusers cannot bear being in social contexts which sympathize with victims and castigate perpetrators. Basically all abusers are like PR professionals for “team abuser” constantly trying to “sell” the abuser mentality and fight against sympathy for victims. In other words, the filter against most garden variety abusers is built right into the advocacy system because it’s giving free voice to victims/survivors which is completely abhorrent and intolerable to abusers. That doesn’t rule out infiltration by extreme psychopaths who– due to lack of any sensitivity to social stigma and condemnation– might be able to tolerate being around a bunch of victims who regularly castigate abusers and champion survivors. But that kind of total psychopath is reassuringly very rare. I honestly never once saw anyone infiltrating victim discussion groups who was that seamless. We did see a few borderline types who’d come in posing as victims but they’d quickly Rambo out of the group in a seethong rage when they couldn’t get others to agree with them that all victims are equally disordered, fucked up and violence-prone as perps. Faux victims stood out like sore thumbs and generally took themselves out like the fraudulent trash they were.
Reading your posts on victim advocacy has really helped give me a boost.
Not to the same degree as you or these ladies, but I am leading the charge of getting a support group together for women in a male-dominant hobby league. The toxicity is awful (one man stated that if women didn’t want to be manhandled there, they should stay home — this is not a contact sport), and I’ve already gone once to the national headquarters in defense of a young woman who had a teammate pull his pants down in front of her.
The latest is a guy a dated last year and started filing for a RO, but he finally left me alone after 3 months of no contact from me. The same guy just had the police called on him for stalking his last girlfriend. He’s now pulling the narcissist game of publicly bashing her and posting probate photos.
I’m done with letting this bullshit pass.
Thanks for the reassuring comment HOAC.
HOAC – Do you think that strengthening “at fault” divorce laws could put women/victims at more risk? If cheaters knew they would lose homes, retirement savings, custody or jobs would they simply ramp up the DARVO?
I wonder what the Jane Does Well founder’s FWs think of the organization? “Don’t mess with with the chump because she goes and does something crazy like this”? Funny to think about it. Thank you FWs for spurring the chumps on, thank you very much!
*also, keep getting kicked off the page while typing. I lost my first draft & then had difficulty staying on the page
The site is going through some things… I hope it’s more stable in the near future. Sorry for the frustration.
I can’t even access it using my normal browser, Safari. But Chrome works OK, FYI.
Firefox works on both mobile and desktop.
I hope the other FWs are taking notes.
Copy and paste your draft from your notes instead, so you don’t lose it anymore.
Yes I have been doing that but I got bumped off before I could copy & paste 😜
A question for Dr. Simon: I’m having so much trouble with music since my divorce. Male voices describing love. My question is: In your opinion, is this mostly a learned message, repeated over generations, that has been proven to attract/keep females/sell recordings? Or are there truly adult males who are using their art and voice to describe emotions they feel? I know this is a small potatoes discussion, but I find myself wondering often.
The Jacques Brel song in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn4DfCzyu_Y
The song is sad and terrible but interesting in that it’s written by a guy. It seems very sympathetic to genuinely innocent people and chumps. Men can be chumped too.
My favorite professor in college was an avowed feminist who led courses in experimental women’s lit. She usually started off every semester with a spiel warning about the dangers of “doormat format” music– pop songs, etc, that unironically romanticize the long-suffering pick-me dance.
But I distinguish songs like that from songs written honestly from the chump perspective. There can be emotional catharsis about heartbreak without groveling, pining pick-me antics. I’ve even managed to collect a few examples of male artists who wrote/sang about heartbreak definitively from victim perspective, like Jacques Brel’s The Desperate Ones (“Let he who cast the stone at them stand up and take a bow/he knows the verb ‘to love’ but will never know how…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOGjWssy3qE)
Another song that’s arguably from the chump perspective is Burt Bacharach’s “God Give Me Strength” because there’s a little dose of rebellious rage mixed with heartbreak. It was featured in the film “Grace of My Heart” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJvKN7MS_9w) and also covered by Elvis Costello (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAiDOYGm30o).
My love language is : words of affirmation. Sigh. I think the only men who say really nice things are full of shit. My dear husband v2.0 is an acts of service person.
Ironic that at the same time I reading this the song “abcdefu” is playing?! I think not.
When one rises up, they improve their journey. When many rise up, they change the journey for others.
Chump Nation does it here every day, thanks to CL.
Congratulations to the Jane Does Well organization for leading the way for a better dialogue and more fair access to services for mothers and children going through divorce.
The ABCDEFU song ! That’s new to me and hilarious 🤣 Thanks for the laugh.
How does one… get started on creating a chapter of Jane Does Well, I wonder? Anybody reading these comments involved in the organization directly? I don’t believe I CURRENTLY have the bandwidth to do this, but let’s just say that I am fucking incensed at the absolute bullshit I’ve read about divorcing the character disordered here, and heard in the wild, and would love to be part of the solution as like… a 5-10 year plan?
I’m in Canada
I’m so glad to hear about Jane Does Well – I occasionally encounter women who don’t think they can leave a bad marriage because of (usually) money concerns, esp if they have babies or small children. This might make all the difference to them for escape. I’ll be telling people about this – thanks CL once again!
Jane Does well!! Amazing, subscribe, listen. Over the top woman of courage. Thank you!
For Dr. Simon, a question. My “Christian” XH conned 3 pastors into believing he was sorry for his one ” affair”which was actually many more, with the last one being an HR reported event.He pulled out all the Forgiveness DVDs for me, demanded I watch and forgive asap and be quick about it too. He was able to get rebaptized with a protection order in place and with the latest OW sitting in the front pew. He was able to get remarried 9 weeks after my divorce was final after I was told he and Ow went to counseling, also, all within a 10 Month period of time. His impression management was extraordinary. My question is::there are many many wolves in sheep clothing as well as cheater apologist as leaders within the inner halls of any organized or unorganized religious community. Im not blaming any one in particular. My pastor told me since I filed, i needed to know most men cannot live long without sex so I should expect OW would step in my gap. Manipulative crocodile tears, worked, sorry for his.”sin” worked,( not a breath of any apology to me since I “drove him to it.” )Is the church a particularly open range for liars and Cheaters, closet cheaters and Cheater apologists. Does the church hierarchy incubate these types and lull the simple to sleep with Forgiveness and moving on? Or is any and every organization cut from the same exact cloth statistically? Need I even protest? Thank you!!
“My pastor told me since I filed, i needed to know most men cannot live long without sex so I should expect OW would step in my gap…”
That is infuriating and outrageous Christian bullshit. Fuck that pastor. Some of the most beautiful, inspiring Western Literature is about men living their lives well and proving this idiot fake-pastor wrong. For example: Robinson Crusoe. Single. Isolated. And shocker, he survived! then there’s Starbuck from Moby Dick. Married with a son, away at sea for many months and wanting to get home to them, all while surrounded by wicked men. Ahab’s delusional, evil ended up killing him and everyone onboard but Ishmael (sorry for the spoiler..) : ) But Starbuck CHOSE to do what was right. Mankind (Humanity) are not dogs, we are not apes. We choose our actions with knowledge. And we know that it is wrong to lie, hurt, cheat on and betray our partner. Uggggh!
You didn’t ask me, but in my humble opinion, to answer your question, YES, this kind of Churchianity is bullshit and seriously hurts the sheep. There is the true and the fake. They both exist within visible Christianity. It’s been a thing for all of church history, it was a thing during the time of the gospels (the time of Jesus) and was a thing in the O.T. It’s one of God’s major themes in the bible, from what I observe. The false shepherds are wolves; con men, shysters.
The true (under) shepherds, I’m referring to ministers/ pastors, are like Jesus; they are the real deal. These are the ones who don’t lie to you, they don’t ‘Christian bullshit’ you, they actually and truly love people. We have to use mass quantities of discernment to determine which is which. Stay the hell away from the bullshit (lying, abusive) Churchianity. Hope that offers a bit of encouragement.
So glad to see another state in the northeast beginning to fold coercive control into definitions of domestic violence. Seriously, I’m over the moon about it. This could change everything and be very important for chumps. I’m also glad a group that understands things related to chumpdom is getting involved on the ground floor of this campaign to ensure that any ensuing legislation doesn’t end up making things worse for chumps. For instance, the criteria for coercive control often involves abusers stalking and monitoring online activity, social media, devices, etc. Though there’s a huge difference between A) an abuser/perpetrator sleuthing a victim’s web activity and hacking their devices within a recognizable pattern of coercive control; and B) a victim of abuse sleuthing for evidence of cheating in order to prove cause in a fault divorce state or to guard against STDs or dissipation of assets related to affairs, a badly written law could end up as a booby trap for victims while placing another weapon of coercion/control in the hands of perps.
No one (but an abuser) wants that. To quote humorist and philosopher GK Chesterton, “If you let loose a law, it will do as a dog does. It will obey its own nature, not yours. Such sense as you have put into the law (or the dog) will be fulfilled. But you will not be able to fulfill a fragment of anything you have forgotten to put into it.” I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know what would have to be put into the wording of coercive control legislation to prevent it from being weaponized against victims who are merely trying to protect themselves. But I trust a group like Jane Does Well could draw together the kinds of brilliant legal minds capable of addressing any potential snafu like this.
There’s also another potential pitfall to address in Massachusetts that I heard about quite often while working as an advocate for victims of DV and also while working with disability rights attorneys. Mass is among the few US states banning recording without “all party” consent– a snafu that gives Massachusetts to reputation of being “where justice goes to die” among civil rights advocacy arenas. Mass even distinguishes itself by making unconsented recording a felony punishable by five years in prison. The problem with this is that it makes it difficult if not impossible for victims of any number of abuses of power (you name it: workplace sexual harassment, victims of institutional abuse or police brutality, battering and CC victims, etc.) to prove civil and criminal claims. I would argue that it makes it especially difficult for victims of coercive control to prove claims because coercive control– as a “subviolent” form of emotional and psychological torture– generally doesn’t cause the broken bones and visible bruising that can be used as evidence in DV cases. Aside from written evidence, stealth recording of threats/gaslighting/verbal abuse would be the chief means of gathering proof of coercive control.
Technically, Mass has a legal loophole that unconsented recordings that are “in the public interest” may be admissible in court. Because of the sheer cost of domestic abuse to taxpayers and society, I think there’s a strong argument to be made that bringing domestic abusers to justice is “in the public interest.” But– D’OH!– apparently courts in the state rarely rule to allow use of the loophole. That’s why I think whoever attempts to address issues related to coercive control in Massachusetts is ultimately going to have to square off against this dodgy application of recording laws. I sense that’s going to be a difficult fight because there are more than a few “abusers of power” who wouldn’t want to see the consistent legalization of stealth recording “in the public interest.”
I’m looking forward to the podcast interview with Dr. George Simon. I found your blog Tracy in early 2016 and googled his work. Borrowed “In Sheep’s Clothing” from my local library. In early 2017 I saw he was coming to my area in the US to give a seminar so I attended, and received my certificate. It was really more of a lecture presenting the contents of his book “Character Disturbance” which I purchased at the end of the talk and read that following weekend. There was a too brief Q & A part after his presentation. He had the merching down pat, opening boxes of his books to sell directly to us attendees. I thought of you and your husband hitting the road in a r.v. and spreading the CL gospel. But look at you now-Chumpalooza coming and the podcast !
What if you’re a broke single mother? How do you start ANYTHING? When I can’t even keep enough food in the house? I have to take care of my parents as well and they have no income, either!
Check the organization out. It’s free. And they do networking.