How to Respond When Someone Minimizes Cheating?
WTF?
The perils of telling your story when folks minimize cheating. OP told her hairstylist she was chumped and got, “I guess you weren’t compatible.” As if she had a wandering dick allergy or something.
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Dear Chump Lady,
Here I went again… telling my story to a new person (a new hairstylist this time) and it never fails that someone weighs in what caused my ex-husband to cheat and leave. I’ve heard and read all the ones here at CN, and from the cheaters themselves. This time though, I got from my new stylist:
“Oh, you guys just weren’t compatible then”.
Huh? What?
I was stumped. My brain started tabulating values and behaviours to see where cheater and I were possibly incompatible — before the cheating — and I have nothing. Minor things but basically overall nothing blared incompatible.
Am I missing something? My new stylist was pretty matter of fact. Am I not seeing or accepting the incompatibility part? I know the cheating is incompatible, but usually we don’t know that part about them until they do it. I want to reject hairstylist’s synopsis, but not sure if it’s because I don’t want to accept it’s down to simple incompatibility? I need some assistance in thinking this through.
Thanks so much,
Miss Compatibility
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Dear Miss Compatibility,
The rejoinder to that is:
“Yeah, I’m incompatible with abuse.”
You’re always free to challenge the batshit blameshifting that you compelled your husband’s dick to wander.
Go ahead and ask what sort of incompatibilities cause cheating. He’s a Taurus and you’re an Aries? He’s not a morning person? Different Myers-Briggs scores?
Which one of your quirks drove him to randos?
Look, I’m not ascribing ill intent toward your hairstylist. She probably hears a lot of sad stories and does emotional labor as well as hair. Stock pop psychology phrases (RIC tropes) like “it takes two to tango” or “no one knows what goes on inside a marriage” come ready made.
The conventional infidelity wisdom minimizes cheating.
If anything, your hairstylist is trying to soften the blameshifting as a compatibility issue. Left unsaid is you’re vanilla, or didn’t sexually satisfy him, or are a soul-crushing nag to his wild Bohemian soul.
Incompatibility has a built-in solution too — find someone more compatible! Vanilla like you! Tolerant of your more oppressive habits!
Incompatibility is another way of ascribing fault to the chump and permitting abuse if a partner isn’t happy. Hey, he has to shop around because you’re incompatible. And if he just finds someone MORE compatible — say, someone with 17 orifices and low-self esteem — he’ll never roam again.
All of this accepts his entitlement as natural.
And, as you point out, has nothing to do with the harm done from deception. It’s one thing to announce to your partner that you’re incompatible and end things. It’s quite another to fuck around on the down low until caught. One approach is ethical and the other is not.
But big picture here — I’d be choosey about who you tell your chump story to. Chances are you’ll be met with ignorant blameshifting that minimizes cheating. In the early days, when you’re wobbly and more prone to emotionally vomit on strangers’ shoes, that crap will hurt more. You won’t have the calluses from callousness yet.
So, save your heartache for the therapist’s office and support sites like CN, or trusted friends. Later, when you feel up to it, challenge the narrative. Yes, you’re incompatible with a FW. Thank God.
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Friday Challenge — share your thoughts with Miss Compatibility about how’d you respond, or have responded to victim-blaming.
“Well, obviously I’m not compatible with someone who lies, cheats and breaks his wedding vows. But incompatible doesn’t excuse cheating instead of ending a marriage with honesty.”
That’s even better than Tracy’s answer. Someone who blames cheating on “incompatibility” probably doesn’t have any clue about ending a marriage with honesty.
I learned from Tracy. And I’m still learning. She deserves the credit.
We’re all learning from her. She’s the best.
As Tracy already is hinting at, “I guess you just were not compatible” from the hair stylist can also mean “You’re oversharing. Let’s please get back to small talk about the weather.”
Another thing it can and often does mean is “I don’t want to face intentional abuse, evil and manipulation.” If she is straight, then that is the exact same response as women who ask rape victims what they were wearing… Yes, women victim-blaming other women is common, because the cognitive dissonance “I date men, sleep with men, care for men” and “some men are deeply abusive” is too great. So the thing has to be… “spackled”… over.
This even is the case for things completely unrelated to their own personal situation: many people are absolutely unwilling to give up our societal brainwashing that our world is just, justice exists, most people are good bla di bla. The context in which I know that one best (and I have spoken to many disabled people, men and women, who are in the same situation) is “I don’t find life meaningful without love and partnership. But due to my disability my chances of being loved are very low – abuse is the only thing I am being offered.” This rough content can be phrased different ways, but the response from non-disabled happy married folks is almost always the same, including initially with some close friends (took some non-literal “yelling” to switch that off): “Ah, there is someone for everyone.” That is a blatant lie. Something we know statistically absolutely to be false. It is not even a white lie in any way, shape or form. All it communicates is “I am uncomfortable with dealing with you, your distress, the fact that the world is not fair and I care so little about you that I will gaslight you and lie to your face, knowing that we both know what I am saying to be objectively untrue.”
We also do similar stuff to ourselves all the time, because we don’t want to face certain facts. I see that all the time when it comes to workplace bullying discussion… There is always someone who insists that bullies are just unhappy. There are mountains of scholarly studies that show that Machiavellian behavior, eliminating competition etc. is an extremely effective tactic for career success and that career success makes happy. What we do however also scientifically know to be true? Victims of workplace bullying usually loose their job or quit and are deeply unhappy.
And the last one, now closer to home: a similar projection of something subjectively false happens when a million excuses for why FWs need to rub genitals with people other than their partners behind their partners’ backs or why one should feel sorry for them incl. “but s/he is so unhappy alone”, are trotted out. All the while we have millions of books and studies showing that FWs lack emotional empathy and care about only themselves.
People who, because they share some similarities with someone who has been victimized and, because of this, might particularly fear the same fate could befall them are sometimes all the more prone to distance themselves from the victim by blaming or splitting the blame or even siding with the perpetrator. It’s the reason jury consultants working for the prosecution in rape trials will carefully filter out any women in the jury pool who might lean in that direction.
I watched my own lawyer do this in a civil trial against a workplace stalker. I was actually in awe of her ability to quickly pry these blaming attitudes out of prospective jurors. What was even better is that the idiot defense attorney actually thought my lawyer was doing him a favor by getting certain women off the jury so he never tried to contest her picks or nixes. More fool him.
She was also very good at sussing out which men might support the perpetrator and that was also pretty surprising.
I asked her about it after we won the trial (by a landslide) and she explained that what men typically think of as stereotypical “feminist” women (like a Hillary Clinton or a Margaret Thatcher) often are not feminists in any collective sense and no friends to other women, tend to look down on anyone who “allows” themselves to be victimized and are often “male directed”– meaning their entire concept of competence is based only on a hypermasculine model while being contemptuous of more “female” models of competence.
As stressful as that experience was, it was actually a delight watching her mop the floor with the smug, misogynist defense attorney by being a kind of exaggerated embodiment of “female competence.” I think her superpower was being underestimated and even wondered later if she was the original inspiration for the Elsbeth Tascioni character from the legal series The Good Wife and spinoffs The Good Fight and Elsbeth. Like the way she’d drop papers in court and giggle. Or the way she’d readjust her constantly slipping scrunchy in the middle of cross examinations and laugh at herself. The more she fumbled and giggled, the more the defense attorney thought he had it in the bag until she lowered the boom and destroyed his case. He looked like he needed a six month therapy retreat by the end of the trial.
UPVOTE!!! Geez. That is way way too too complicated for average folk.
Translates in general life – as CL points out – amongst smug women who are certain “that would never happen to me”. As I like to say – and know it’s a lesson from CL – humans are SO good at othering. Women who distance themselves from other women who they regard as sad, failed, single, chumped losers.
Good Luck, sweetheart!!!
Not to defend these smug people, because you are right, it IS smug. But I think it is also just fear based. They simply want to think it can’t happen to them because THEY are doing all the right things in their marriage. They would be horrified if they read the archives here and saw just how many chumps were completly blindsided by the affairs because at home everything SEEMED great. Far, far too often the FW doesn’t even want to leave, they just want EXTRA CAKE. And the ones that do want to leave are often chasing after the “new car smell”/limerance,which doesn’t last.
But sure, it’s easier for them to go ahead and assume that all us chumps were sexless harpies that didn’t take care of our marriages, because that means as long as they do all the right things, their marriage is affair-proof.
Yes!! Aren’t we trying to avoid deceit?
Thank you Disfor! You helped me understand something about my relationship with my best friend with your reply. Statistically speaking a 55+year old single parent who works full time and is low on energy is NOT going to find romantic companionship. But whenever I lament this fact I am met with what I perceive as bs positivity—there’s a lid for every pot or there’s someone for everyone! It pisses me off, but every time I challenge her I get dismissed. This friend was there for me every step of the way during the end of my marriage. Easily 100+ hours of handholding and offering her attention to my kids when I had nothing to give. So she did not minimize the pain of betrayal, but now I see that the minimization of the likely forever loss of romantic companionship is what I’m dealing with. And—I think I’m ok with that. A best friend does not have to get EVERYTHING.
This site is always so helpful in putting into words what we are experiencing. So many insightful wonderful people here! I’m verklempt with gratitude CN!
There’s a lid for every pot
Hahahhaa that made me laugh so hard
I am also forever single, it ain’t gonna happen.
I mostly am fine with the idea of remaining single forever. Occasinally, I think I might change my mind someday. But mostly, I don’t see it happening. Divorce isn’t final yet, getting closer but not there. So right now the concept of whether I’d ever date is pointless to explore. I have so much healing to do before that would even be a consideration.
The idea of closing myself off and never having a romantic partner again because I got so burned doesn’t feel “right”. It feels like giving up. Or like letting the FW win.
But I just don’t know if I have it in me to take any risks. But even just the logistics of it, doi want to wedd through dating apps and the hellthat comes with that? If someday I am ready to date and the man of my dreams finds me in the grocery store, fine. But I don’t think that is likely, and so we are back at single for life.
On the flipside, I have lots of friends. I don’t know if I will ever be super lonely. And my FW was so controlling that I enjoy the peace of doing whatever I want. Maybe spending the rest of my life doing just that is fine?
I often think my age, 54, has a lot to do with my feelings. If this all happened at 34,I think I would have absolutlyhave waited but eventiually dated again. But at this point,I feel lilke I will be practically 60 before I’m ready to even consider dating. And hey, 60 isn’t dead. But I know myself and I just think the older I get, the less I will care about being single.
I saw a great post online this weekend about how many people feel like starting over at 50 is too hard. And it said instead of thinking of it as starting from scratch at 50, think ofit as being 95 and waking up one morning to find you are 50 again and get a chance to re-do the nexgift of another fresh 45 years. I liked that idea.
Oh, and verklempt and beshert are two of my all time fav words. 🙂
I’m glad my comment helped you! I mean, you can also broach the topic directly with your friend if you want to… (“Here are the stats on remarriage for women with kids over 50. Here are the stats on who men over 50 get remarried to… When you say that there is a lid for every pot, I don’t feel heard. Maybe you just don’t know what to say about a problem that is like palliative care for patient? A problem for which there is no solution?”
Of course no need to try that if you feel fine and are getting the closure/acceptance that you needed already.)
Sorry, just realised I forgot about Friday Challenge and just reacted to the story itself: “Friday Challenge — share your thoughts with Miss Compatibility about how’d you respond, or have responded to victim-blaming.”
What I did with some close friends (those that I did not break off contact with) was have them read a few pages from Mickey Royal’s “The Pimp Game”. It’s an extremely good insight into the minds of those who see others purely as pawns you can abuse for your own gain and discard. It’s the best description of a narcissist’s/psychopath’s view of women and the world I have ever come across and the best description of a narcissist discard and swapping a woman out for another woman.
Thanks for the book recommendation!
This depends on context. It could just have been the hair stylist trying to gently (if clumsily) close down a conversation that she was uncomfortable with. In general though, if someone hit me with the “I guess that you and Ex-Mrs LFTT just weren’t compatible” trope, I think that I would question my compatibility with that person as well.
LFTT
I think she genuinely wanted to hear my story. I’ve been to her three times now & she shared personal information with me too. She’s a great stylist but maybe not as an advice giver lol!
Yeah, it depends on her tone. She could definitely have just been uncomfortable and didn’t know what else to say. I think you’d be able to tell by the way she said it. Her tone would be non-committal if that was the case. Otoh, if the statement was empathetic or had any heat behind it, she was being a bitch.
Incompatible, yes! I remember this silliness. It is a way to make you feel like there is something wrong with you, when there is absolutley nothing wrong with you. I recall that becuase I couldn’t drink as much alcohol as the various betrayal objects, I was clearly incompatible (and inferior). Thankfully! I was never much of a drinker. One drink or glass and done, tops. I’m a small person, it made me feel unsteady, just never liked it. So, I gave it up at some point entirely,and felt better for it. But, ah, the betrayal objects! They could drink! A cocktail or 2, shot of whiskey or rum, followed with a bottle of wine, and they were still standing, just fine and able to do whatever. That is compatability there. Someone who can drink as much–and even more than he could. He was drawn to the drunken, the “rode hard and put up wet,” sort of women, and I was never that.
Or…you aren’t tall enough (did he think I might grow? And at 5’4″, what did he have to say about that? …and on and on… The only compatability that existed is that the betrayal objects shared a lack of values/morals/boundaries. They agreed that whatever felt good was permissible, and nothing was unacceptable if you enjoyed it. So, celebrate your incompatability! You are a person of value and meaning. The world is a better place with you in it. The FW and the betrayal objects…no value there. You were not compatible with a bottom-feeder. That is a very good thing. FWIW, I made copies of Omar Minwalla’s work on The Secret Sexual Basement, and kept them in my car, purse, gym bag. I gave them out to people to explain what happened to me. Your hairdresser may or may not be able to comprehend all of that. You have to evaluate that, but no real harm in giving out the info.
That’s a great idea actually!! I will consider doing the same.
I thinks it’s best not to try to enlighten someone who is actively and publicly cutting my hair.
Providing details is best left for necessary conversations with professionals – and those are hard enough.
I thought that using the embezzlement analogy was useful, but the culture has become so corrupted that blaming victims is now the now the norm. Abuse/infidelity is not a deal breaker for our nation’s highest positions.
The thoughtless response is a good reason to find another haircutter.
Oh boy, I got a long one today. LOL I got so, so incredibly nasty with a few people over this. Like I probably went way beyond behaving in a socially acceptable manner and those people would run to cross the street if they ever saw me coming. But it blew my mind. It was bad enough to be blamed before I knew he was sexually attracted to children but AFTER? I couldn’t. I don’t care how hard up for sex a person is, if they’d turn to r*ping a child they are simple a pedo and should be executed. Full stop. No non pedo will ever get horny enough to go screw a kid. It’s not an option they would even consider. So nothing I could have done, even if I was the worst person at sex on Earth rationalizes him going after children.
I’m going to reveal something about myself. I was a sex worker when I was younger. The girls you saw on TV working at the legal brothels in Nevada years ago? I was one of them. I’m on TV. So, I know a little something about sex to the point I was able to be a professional. My thing was selling $1500 hours, and I did nothing weird or gross for that amount of money. So, I’m clearly not ugly and not a prude and not bad at the sex. But I was called all of those things during the divorce. Or people would smugly imply it at me. And for the record, I think if someone is so far gone they see literal sex workers as prudes, they are a demented perverted degenerate and should be removed from society because there is no hope for them and they are a danger to everyone around them. Your brain has to be porn fried at that point.
But anyways, it was hard enough to deal with that before I knew he was a pedo, but after? I actually tore into a few people. “Was I supposed to fucking bring him children?! Is that what you would do, you sick fucking bitch? Was I supposed to try to look like a child? Even if I was willing to do that, which I am not! Fucking how?! Of course he hates me! No pedo could ever be attracted to me! Nothing on my body looks anything like a child’s! I didn’t do enough to satisfy him?! Would you have fucking brought him children?! Would you have?!” I got scary but I was so angry. To be blamed for the abuse of children because I’m not sexy enough? Oh fuck no, I was not taking that.
And I also want to note that I do not support sex work. I support sex workers LEAVING the industry. I’ve seen so many people destroyed by the industry. I’ve known women who were murdered and those who went by their own hands. The only reason I think I was able to do it is because the mental and physical abuse I suffered as a child taught me how to turn my feelings off, and my illness numbed me a lot. But it’s incredibly destructive for most people. My ex actually pushed me into it. I’m very lucky I came out unscathed but I didn’t do it very long either. I saw how destructive it was. It’s not empowering, and feminism should not support it. The OnlyFans trend disturbs me. It’s just churning through young women.
KatiePig, I love your comments. Thanks for sharing even more of yourself with us; thanks for trusting us with that.
I agree with your stance, and am sorry you went through that.
I’m so sorry you had a tough beginning to your life, KatiePig, and I hope the rest of your days make up for those earlier horrible ones.
You’re awesome, Katie. Thank you so much for sharing.
I’m so damn glad that you are not with your pimp anymore – and that he got busted for child sexual abuse. That’s a weird sentence to write, but he can’t harm you nor kids anymore.
As for OnlyFans: yes, so extremely disturbing, because the only thing girls younger than me do is self-objectify. They have pretty much thrown away their own sexuality. Doesn’t exist anymore – just an object, not an actor enjoying anything. All is faking for the consumption of a man three times their age. But the ubiquity of porn in general is very disturbing. And also cause of further heteropessimism. I mean, a male friend of mine… we’re both old enough to not have had internet access at all as kids (existed, of course, but kids weren’t on it yet every day yet and when, then only on the shared family computer – and smartphones weren’t a common thing yet). The first porn he saw? Pictures in a magazine that could be bought at a gas station. The older brother of a friend of his bought them. I asked him to describe me the pictures roughly. It was a nude woman spreading her legs. No man, no dildo, not touching herself. Compare that to today. Makes me want to weep and despair.
Wow, KatiePig, thank you for trusting us enough to share that part of your story. I don’t post very often but I read everyday and I always enjoy your comments. Your directness is something to which I aspire. Good on you for reading someone the Riot Act who tried to imply you were somehow lacking in anything that might drive someone to harm a child. Fuck’em. I enjoy the image of you tearing in some Switzerland mamby-pamby with righteous fury. Hopefully, it gave them something to think about, even if they do cross the street when they see you now.
Thank you.
If you don’t know about it, I think you’d support the work of Nordic Model Now.
Thank you for your honesty! I am speechless as to the minimization in your case! Annnddd… we are going to blameshift onto the chump pedophillia??!! SMH
As I said above, CN is filled with the most insightful, caring, and brave people. Thank you for your candor!
Thanks for being vulnerable. I know we don’t “know” each other, but we have seen each other in the comments for a long time. And, yes, you were completely justified in tearing into people who blamed you for your ex’s pedophilia. He was a monster.
Since CL I have changed my response as this sight has taught me. I actually debate that misinformation even though it is TMI. I throw out my 2x experience with the dark arts of cheating, the basement life, the visits to my GYN and a touch of the intimate abuse. Also mentioning the story of cheater leaving me on the delivery room table to celebrate with OW.I rock their world for a moment if it is a woman. Fear is behind the frosting of these awful conversations and ignorance. Then I let them off my story hook and turn to weather. If they are friends, I see how they react. If they are still uncertain, our relationship starts to slowly wither…happened to several. I had to make other friends. Now I talk to ignorance, but not for long.
Yep- strangers are one thing.
People I was previously friends with don’t get a pass – they should know better than to talk such crap.
I agree Bluewren. With people I know, I am willing to cut a little, very little, slack and share some informative observations from another perspective. If it makes them think or wonder or if in any way I see a willingness to broaden their own perspective, I’m willing to continue. Otherwise, well, I like the use of the word ‘wither’ above. It’s easy enough to let an existing or budding relationship wither without banging my head against the wall.
Yep- people will tell us who they are at times like these .
It can take awhile because we don’t want to believe it of them.
Fern, Bluewren, we had couple friends that I spilled my whole story too( the woman) in detail..abuse, intimate etc…a few weeks ago this friend told me that her husband was “counseling ” My X as a friend and as an Elder. They had phone calls going weekly. I sat up and told my now former friend that I could no longer talk to her. I had zero contact with my X and if she talked to her husband about me, he could counsel my now married X and his new wife
On my sharing. My trust for my friend went to the bottom of the ocean. This happened with 2 couple friends and we just cannot talk anymore for my safety. It is so very sad. So some people don’t get a pass.
It’s terrible the collateral damage this stuff does.
So many casually break trust.
My once loved and trusted friend who lives 3 doors down from my marital home didn’t even see fit to tell me it burned down two weeks ago- with some of my stuff still in there.
That was definitely the final straw .
I’m sure it’s hard for my former couple friends to decide who to support. But when a house burns..you would think..Im sorry Bluewren. It’s like one betrayal on top of the other..One has to be very mighty to get past all this trauma and make new friends if possible. It’s a whole change of life. My married former friends are more uncomfortable with me than with my X with a new wife?
You make an excellent point 2xchump. I always appreciate your comments, too. I think it is a good idea to have an approach that suits us but, like a quarterback calling an audible, there is always a situation that might not be a good fit for the regular treatment. Your story of your lousy friend is a great example – WTF was she thinking? How would this have been OK in any universe that recognizes reality? it’s not and I’m glad you were so forthright with her. No pass and no “withering” was the right call. And you were right to point this out in the context of this post – it’s a crucial point. Gah – there are so many ways to be a flying monkey to a FW…..
A Quarter back making the calls—-That was a great comparison. Always read the room. We must never throw pearls to swine and waste our precious energy. There is so much to recover from and people who back the cheater should not take our last ounce of strength for the day. Fern, you are gold also. My former friend was cheated on by a guy after one year of marriage. That was 35 years before. There are also woman who are swayed by their spouses to take not sides or their side of supporting cheaters . It is hard to stand against your spouse that you want to keep.. So I Get that- I stood against my spouse on several occasions and it was not pretty. I saw his shallow then but wanted to stay married. Often we take the path of least resistance especially if we need our man. But that does leave our friendship out in the cold.
I’m trying to figure out why no one has asked Baron Trump how he feels knowing that his father cheated on his mother while he was 4 months old, admitted it and paid off the porn star he was cheating with so she’d keep quiet while he ran for president in 2016. I’d also like to know how Melania feels about her husband’s behavior. Didn’t they share the same vows? Does the current leader of the free world set a new example for the general public? Maybe the new response to chumps will be: hey, the president does it all of the time, his wife and children don’t mind, 77 million Americans don’t care and they also don’t care that he is a rapist because, as he says, it is historical behavior for men like him. So, chump, what is your problem?
I understand your point, and am no fan of the Orange Ass Clown. I loathe his attitudes and behavior. But I also object to bringing Barron Trump into any discussion of his father’s sex life or marriage. Or crimes for that matter. I feel the same about my own children, the youngest of whom is 35 and able to fend for himself in adult conversation; regardless, I hope no one would ever ask my kids about what their father did unless one of them brings it up first.
The difference is Trump’s issues played out in the news and in court. Unless Baron lives in a cave he is part of the discussion. So is Melania
Melania yes. Barron no. He didn’t sign up for any of this. Ever. This is happening to him. Melania has made her choices, again and again. Considering that I stayed loyal for 35 years, we can twist ourselves up into knots when we think we need to. She didn’t support him running. But Al least she’s an adult. No this is all on the big orange FW. And the people who voted for him.
Minimizers have two possible strategies I believe. Either they have cheated and it’s the narrative they are telling themselves or they want to avoid thinking uncomfortable thoughts about the possibility of their partner cheating. Cheaters will minimize until hell freezes over in order to avoid accountability. My most recent exchange with my cheater ” ahh, well, yes, that was at a time when I was very full of myself, and I came up against it” Came up against it?? I have an email from you to her about how you hated leaving her on the mornings after? How wonderful and earthmoving the sex was! It sounds like you were coming up “against it” every chance you could on business trips and not just with her! His response “I’m not sure what you read”. Why, because you have so many emails to women about the sex you had with them? They will ALWAYS find ways to skirt around or minimize because it’s so uncomfortable for them to think that they might not the stellar person they think they are.
When a friend said that “I KNOW he loves you” ( regarding my now ex husband, not the cheater above- thankfully we are not married, I clearly have a broken picker) as if that would negate all the fuc*ery. I responded “Oh, he loves me? Great, thanks, that makes sense now, he has been sleeping with men!”
I got the same response a few times too “I know he loves you, he’ll be back”. Ha, no!
I would probably have said that I was not compatible with how she did my hair and refuse to pay her and the salon.
No she is a good stylist, I just won’t talk about anything personal like that again. I learned my lesson. That was my mistake.
I also avoid like poison people who minimize or gaslight unacceptable behavior. I’ve gotten up from dinner in a restaurant with such folks and walked out with my middle finger saluting.
🖕🏻 haha! 😄 👏
Hmmmm… but what about when the person minimizing the cheating is… yourself?
I tell myself all the time that it’s perfectly understandable that Ex cheated and left me and the kids for a new life on a new continent with a new family.
I wasn’t the right person for Ex (something he told me all the time) and the kids (now highschoolers) were not as smart, pretty, talented, charming as Ex’s girlfriend’s kids (something he also told me all the time)
I even kind of sympathize with Ex. Raising kids is hard and expensive. It really doesn’t make sense to commit to that with someone you don’t love
Perdita, I really sympathize! And I think Best Thing offers great advice: the important thing is not so much that you find a way to get angrier at your ex, but that you pull inside and focus on yourself, and honor your own good qualities and worth.
My first husband and I were incompatible (as in your case): he was enormously successful professionally, and thought I was a loser because my success was only middle-range. He really, really likes famous people (he’s friends with Stephen Colbert, blah blah), and he is himself famous in his field. That’s just the world he likes, and my core values are different (and, if you ask me, superior, though I do wish I had been able to thrive more, professionally).
So I think it is pretty rational of me to think “yes, I can see how he wanted someone else instead.” And schmoopie was herself quite successful and famous, and she suited him better. But that in no way justifies his having cheated on me with her, nor does it justify the contempt he routinely expressed toward me. He should have just asked for a divorce.
Most salient to your comment is the sad fact that many years later, I sometimes still look at myself and see myself through his eyes: he is flying high, and (thus speaks my voice of unfair self-depreciation) here I am kind of muddling along in my life, just kind of gray and tired at age 70. Speaking for myself, the task, then, is to try to dispel–outright–this self-depreciating voice, whenever it comes. It helps just to see this as a weird, toxic voice that I need to step away from, the minute it appears.I try not even to spend a moment talking back to it. It’s just “that thing,” a kind of momentary haunting; if I focus on something else right away, the haunting tends to pass.
I’m such a snob, Leedy. Back when I was a clueless turnip, I might have been beglamored by material success and power but there’s no better cure for that silly monkey foible than experience. Now I’d rather hang out with a homeless pencil vendor than your sleazy ex or anyone like that. Frankly the bigger they are, the more they stink. Even knowing that Colbert is friends with the guy, I’d snub Colbert too! (also for his periodic hypocritical shilling on issues that are important to me). If someone like that caught me unawares and shook my hand, I’d have to run off to find a bucket of bleach and rubbing alcohol.
But who am I and why would they care, right? That’s the best part. Another thing I learned from experience is that douchebags like this especially hate– I mean furiously, hilariously hate– being snubbed by obscure little plebes. For instance, there’s a very famous, extremely short married comedian I once met at some screening party whom my friends and I saw literally chasing some teenage bit player all around the Rainbow Room. I think the girl– who looked like they dredged her out of an Appalachian shack in eastern Kentucky– was only cast for that purpose because the poor thing could barely utter an intelligible sentence.. It was so exploitative and tragic that I felt ill. So when said famous midgety comedian graced our humble table with his magnanimous presence, all I did was refuse to smile. That’s it but that’s all it took for the guy to spend the rest of the night glaring daggers at me.
It actually spooked me a bit because the film was mafia backed (the goombahs showed up later, pinkie rings and the whole bit) so after that I used more subtle tactics to avoid fraternizing with pigs like suddenly getting a call or having a problem with a nonexistent contact lens, whatever. Hell hath no fury like a porker scorned. But people like that are the only subclass in my book, the real “untouchables.” Blech.
“That’s all it took for the guy to spend the rest of the night glaring daggers at me.” How interesting! And over time I’ve come to share your view that “the bigger they are, the more they stink.”
I think my life experience has completely radicalized me against the trappings of class, power and material wealth. Frankly it’s pretty liberating to no longer find myself even slightly moved or impressed by any of that shit– even talent and accomplishment– like I was (ugh, embarrassing) when I was young, dumb and clueless.
I keep remembering the words of the director of the victim advocacy program I worked with in college– that “harmlessness is the only glamor.” She didn’t mean “harmless” as in weak or conciliatory but just an inability to abuse power or do harm to the less advantaged. The more time I spend on earth, the more I think these are words to live by and that “social anarchy” is the secret to happiness.
“harmlessness is the only glamor”–this is great
This will be an odd one for you, but in addition to LACGAL (which I’m assuming you already read, since you’re on this page?), read the book I mentioned in my other comment here (I downloaded it for free, because I don’t wish to give an abuser money). If that doesn’t make you angry and you don’t finally acknowledge what it means to see women (or any humans) simply as pawns to be swapped out (you and the other woman – which he describes) instead of actually bonding and caring and just faking care to get what you want, then nothing will. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but just how direct the author is and how strategic in his abusiveness… was an absolute eye opener for me. It made any type of projection of good intentions or excuses because I didn’t want to admit that I (or others) have simply been used and that the abuser is laughing in our faces, beyong impossible.
“Raising kids is hard and expensive. It really doesn’t make sense to commit to that with someone you don’t love” ??? What? So did you give your kids to an orphanage?
Your post is leaving me confused. Are you being sarcastic in your look on your former self or…?
I wish I were being sarcastic!!!
I still have this idiotic softhearted feeling towards Ex. He used to tell me all the time how boring and conventional I was, while he was the daring, exciting, free spirit who couldn’t be tied down by society’s rules.
How do I get angry at him and stop making excuses for his behavior?
If anyone needed radical feminism as rocket fuel to boost them out of inert discouragement and despair, you might really benefit from it. I recommend signing up with the subreddit “Female Dating Strategy” as a fun “defibrillation” out of depressing patriarchal brainwashing. It’s a pretty young subred but I find it useful for keeping my thumb on the pulse of issues that are of interest to my teen kids.
Curiously, my two sons are even more enthusiastic about this stuff than my daughter. Fancy that… boys who think Andrew Tate and Jeffrey Epstein are cautionary tales and the grossest examples of masculine identity possible. Anyway, it generally makes for spicy dinner conversation so go check it out. 😉
I saw on X – where a guy posted in response to JD Vance wanting America to have more babies – that American women’s standards are just too dang high for men…. so many men resist levelling up 🙄
Technically not every man can be as wealthy or as good looking as the “standards” require him to be so it’s not really as simple a matter as “leveling up”. If it was as simple as that then none of us women would be struggling financially. In the real world, MOST men aren’t going to meet the standards, same way MOST women won’t meet the standards for men. The real problem with birth rates is a combination of factors that include what “Hell of a chump” said. The major factors are high cost of living(which is actually the reason why “standards” are going up), infertility and negative cultural messaging about kids.
That’s certainly one of the theories but there are a few angles that Redpillers would be loath to contemplate that may be at least factors if not the main drivers of falling birth rates. For one, women seem to be consciously and voluntarily driving the single and child-free trend in some countries and not exactly curled up weeping about it. And, who knows, maybe that relates to what Erin Brockovich warns about– that plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises and the fertility-killing toxic shitstorm humanity is drowning in which might also be the biggest pink elephant in the room: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich
I worked for an environmental health publication for more than a decade and we were seeing a lot of alarming incoming science about the effects of various industrial chemicals on animal health, fertility, mating practices and sexual drive. One of the professional hazards of reading this stuff all the time is developing nail-chewing anxiety over it. The “micro-dick” and sperm count warnings and correlations to things like PCOS and reproductive cancer were among the reasons I removed all plastic dishware from our cupboards when my kids were small and put them on an organic diet. Maybe some of it was overkill but you just can’t unsee certain things.
The publication and the research authors we interviewed had detractors, mostly hordes of paid Monsanto trolls who, like Redpillers and Incels, were usually dementedly arrogant, dark triad-y youngish dudes though of the STEMbo variety (STEM + bimbo= science shill lol). But Redpillers and Incels also love to weaponize sciency sounding drivel and dodgy statistics to make their arguments so I can hardly tell the difference between them and the STEMbos. They all use the same pseudorationalist tactics and the same latinese catch phrases (post hoc ergo propter hoc!) in an attempt to cast the opposition as suffering from “cognitive fallacies” (i.e., you sToOpiD.) But here’s the fun part: they’re all equally freaked out by any mention of shrinking dicks and sperm counts.
Not that I actually think any of this is one bit funny but the above was a great killer comeback when the troll brigading became too disruptive. When I moderated social media for a few enviro groups and the publication, that was my secret weapon to mess with the trolls trying to shut down online discussions and chase off “undecideds”. They’d usually become hysterical, blow their own pseudorationalist cover and run away in a big sulk.
Anyway, if you run into any Redpillers making those arguments and accusing you of “cognitive bias,” feel free to use my cutesy little retort: Post hoc ergo tiny cock!
“Fancy that… boys who think Andrew Tate and Jeffrey Epstein are cautionary tales and the grossest examples of masculine identity possible.” Gosh, that sentence is depressing. Says a lot about men and women currently overall. (Your boys should be the norm, not the exception.)
Female Dating Strategy subreddit: stopped working as a discussion forum over a year ago, but still readable of course. I find most of it helpful. The exception is the focus on materialism and rejecting of dating anyone who is disabled or has mental illness issues. I cannot advise any woman ever to date a man who earns less than her overall though (been there, done that- financial abuse was the initial reason why I was chosen… Remember always: “women are so happy to be chosen that they rarely ask themselves what they actually were chosen for.” No woman is a “lottery millionaire”, who got that magical unicorn. If men start feeling contempt for their female partner once their female partner earns more than 40% of household income and wants out of the relationship because on average he now can’t control her anymore – than your man will with 99% certainty be the same as you are not a lottery millionaire or superduper special!)
I found #WomeninMaleFields really helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lluMVtv3jzc I only recently discovered the dating and relationships part. (Before I had only seen the “Women working in male-dominated careers” part.) I did not listen to the audio of that video, only read all the tiktok captions with the hashtag that she collected in the video nor have I read the book by that youtuber, which is based on Female Dating Strategy. After watching and reading the hashtags, I find it shocking that this is such INCREDIBLY common behavior in straight men and also the men’s responses to it are predictably awful and revealing.
Your posts keep ringing bells.
One of my childhood friends, mentally ill for much of her adult life, wanted nothing more than to get married — partly because it was pushed on her by her devout Baptist parents, who should have been charged with child abuse for allowing her to become engaged on her 15th birthday (before her first breakdown). Her older fiance pimped her out to one of his friends and watched them having sex, then broke up with her for being a slut. Life did not get better. Her parents told her to her face that “from the time you were small, we always knew there was something wrong with you.” I tried to nurture her self-esteem, but eventually I left for college and never came back, although I kept in close touch with her because she had been a very good friend to me in adolescence when I needed one, and now she had almost nobody. She was marked out as the town crazy woman, whom an eye-opening number of men sought out for sex but would never acknowledge in public.
Desperately lonely in middle age, she took up with the scum of the earth, a local ex-con whom she had flatly rejected when they were young. He swore he had always loved her. I wondered whether he was courting her because she owned her own house (her parents never actually disowned her and left her the house) and he had nothing, but she said he had some land and a place of his own. He showed up and behaved like a partner. I tried to hope for the best. For a while she was happier than she had been in years.
She named him as the sole beneficiary of her will, leaving him the house, some land and a small insurance policy — and told him she had done it. That mistake cost her her life. Ten days before her 53rd birthday, he took her out into the woods late at night and shot her, and passed it off as suicide. As an ex-con he knew how to do it and get away with it. I will never believe it was suicide. In 40 years, even when she was locked up on a ward and raped by her psychiatrist as well as other inmates, she never wanted to die. If I had had her life, I would have killed myself before I was 40, but she kept going, hoping that better days would come eventually.
I’m 60, divorced (ancient history), and it’s been a decade since I dated, more or less coinciding with the murder of my friend. I think I’ve finally given up. I can’t deal either with the Pollyannas who insist “there’s someone for everyone” and “it’s never too late,” and I can’t deal with the Tinderization and Insta-fication of the whole culture.
I read somewhere that the most realistic people are those who are slightly depressed (I count myself among them). I’m not religious, but I can only say — God bless you, Disfor.
Wow he is daring? Exciting? A free spirit? Add “really effing stupid” to the list since he chose as a partner someone with whom he was incompatible. (I’m picturing Pee Wee’s Playhouse in my mind. The word of the day is “incompatible” – everybody scream!!) How do you get angry at him? Start looking in the mirror and seeing the value of the woman looking back at you. You’re boring? Conventional? Is this a bad thing? Perdita gets to decide who she is. Maybe she decides she is boring and conventional. Then she gets to decide if she likes boring and conventional or if she needs to spice it up a little. XFW gets zero input here.
Perdita, you ask how do you get angry and stop making excuses for his behavior. I know I will get disagreement from other Chumps here but I think you don’t have to get angry. If you get angry that’s fine and normal. But if you don’t that is okay too. The important thing is to take your focus off of FW and put it on yourself. The “GAL” in LACGAL should be topmost in your mind. When you get on your feet and GAL you will no longer have the time or space to think or feel anything about your ex. Your heart and mind will be too full of the wonderful things that you are, that you do, that you think, that you feel – there will be no room and no need for XFW. Remember that XFW himself told you that the two of you were incompatible. (scream!) And the loss is entirely his.
But they weren’t incompatible in the least! FWs’ superpower is identifying chumps and then abusing them. They identify who will project their goodness onto them refusing stubbornly to ever see the truth or understanding the worldview of the FW and/or who may have no dating market capital/prospects so will have to either accept being alone forever or stick with the FW and/or who has more empathy than anyone else and/or who is more damaged/used to abuse than anyone else and/or who cares more about being connected to someone popular and/or financially wealthy and/or successful and someone who definitely knows zilch about Dark Triad (my FW tested that repeatedly – specifically that I had no knowledge) and for female straight chumps: thinks patriarchy is great and/or is being told that patriarchy is the only way by their religion/ideology and/or is in need of finally a father figure/nice family… I could go on and on and on. It’s a yin and yang. (I hope it’s clear what the difference between my argument and victim-blaming is).
Regarding the loss part: that just confused me as I find two different posts here by Perdita to be contradictory. Which of the two is it: does he live a free-spirited life unencumbered by childraising with a glorious new partner or did he loose everything? One of the two versions isn’t true.
“I could go on and on and on. It’s a yin and yang”
Point taken, and I was in that more than one of those situations within my marriage. That’s why XFW’s cheating is the best thing that ever happened to me. I (mistakenly) thought myself powerless to end the relationship myself, so when he (mistakenly) thought “just one more transgression, that Best Thing isn’t going to do a thing about” I was finally, finally able to call it quits.
“Regarding the loss part: that just confused me as I find two different posts here by Perdita to be contradictory. Which of the two is it: does he live a free-spirited life unencumbered by childraising with a glorious new partner or did he loose everything? One of the two versions isn’t true.”
I can relate to Perdita. Throughout the entire devaluation/discard/negotiation phases I was more than half crazy and had multiple versions of what was going on with XFW. His story was that he was “the happiest he had ever been in his life”. Then there were things that I observed firsthand, things that family told me, things that our employees told me that went completely contrary to that narrative. Turns out this man, high on illicit sex and kibbles and the happiest he had ever been at age 60, started drinking, raging, and lying to everybody (as opposed to just me). I could go on and on about what I call his nervous breakdown, but suffice it to say that he had a complete personality change. Anyway my point here is that I have many contradictory thoughts and stories about that whole time, because I did not know what was true/false or even if I was functioning in real life or if I was delusional. I still kind of don’t know what is true, because every question back then was answered with a lie or blame to me. The way I find sanity now is NC, and the acceptance that I will never know the truth of what went on.
It’s fine to be a daring, exciting free spirit if you are FREE. Once you have children, you are not free. You have responsibilities.
“Raising kids is hard and expensive. It really doesn’t make sense to commit to that with someone you don’t love.”
But he HAD kids with you, and even if he later dissolved his his commitment to you, that doesn’t absolve his commitment or responsibilities to his children. Is he trying to evade them by going to another continent and convincing you that he’s so special, he deserves to be free of child support?
Yes, be angry, for your kids and yourself. So what if (and you have only his claim) his girlfriend’s kids are more pretty, smart, talented and charming than yours? If your kids are aware of the comparison, he’s mentally and emotionally abusive, as well as neglectful. Sounds like he’s not supporting them financially, either.
He’s not asking you to hold down the family home while he valiantly fights to save the world or cure cancer. He’s putting you down to brainwash you into thinking it’s your job to bear all the burdens, so he can fly off fancy free to play house and shirk responsibilities to children he fathered. He’s not noble, he’s an entitled Peter Pan. Even if he’s done great things with his life, he’s still a jerk for how he treats you and your kids. Look for resources on getting international child support, and a therapist to help you, and perhaps your kids, deal with low self-esteem.
Wow–great points.
Know that we have all struggled with this
Read the book and stay involved here on the blog.
Read the book again!
Stay out of contact with FW and his flying monkeys
Don’t isolate and find supportive people
As regular readers know, I do tell some people that my ex was a fraud in many ways, so pathetic he fell for a catfish scam after two weeks of emails, and legally can have NO contact with child. I can say with enthusiasm, “We sure are incompatible! He was so jealous of my dozens of national awards for work and volunteer service, all online BTW, that he faked degrees as an MBA and doctor, pretended he was a military vet, invented international awards, and sent tens of thousands of dollars to an online romance scammer he never even saw. When I found out, he assaulted us. When I divorced him, the court investigated and ordered no contact ever with {child}. That says a lot.” And sometimes I add, “I can show you proof of everything, if you want to see it.”
It helps that my career was so public and successful that it’s documented hundreds of times online, and I’m still cited regularly in academic journals. It also helps that I have evidence of his frauds online, copies of his emails, receipts sending tens of thousands of dollars to the online AP, and the court order. Very few people have wanted to see it, but I offer.
Fraudster was very convincing about his supposed accomplishments, while downplaying mine, which weren’t local–I telecommuted– so most people are initially shocked and maybe don’t believe me. I think I’ll tack on a comment to Google me if they have any doubts.
Perhaps because of how I tell it, or because of the facts, I find people are laughing WITH me and AT him. It’s incredibly satisfying, and I’m telling nothing but the truth. It’s tempting to say he never even talked to “her,” but they did, once. He later emailed “her” that in their one call, they spoke less than a minute, he didn’t understand a single word and she sounded like a man. Duh. I sometimes share that story, too.
Perhaps the answer for others could be, “He’s incompatible with himself! He claims to be a good guy/good {insert religion}/ white knight/BoyScout/good employee yet, he decided to go behind my back and have sex with subordinates/chase a married X/steal my money and the kids’ money for secret sex trips/etc. Do you think he thinks he’s James Bond/DonJuan/{insert appropriate pop reference}? I don’t know how he can live with himself, but at least I don’t have to live with him any more.”
Maybe a better, shorter answers is, “I don’t WANT to be compatible with someone who’s a liar, thief and cheat.”
I like that, he’s incompatible with himself!! I think that is the most true statement of fuckwit!
Wow. Just wow. Unfortunately that jealousy of accomplishments I know too well. It was why he targeted me – financial abuse and wanting to destroy that. He actually raged at me once about how unfair my salary at the time was. (Guess what? He succeeded). Another reason I can’t even theoretically envision dating men ever again: unless he’s Kanye and you’re Kim (so both narcissists and she’s just another “connection” to bolster his image), most straight men don’t want their wife to be more successful than them cause they compete (my date did that with my mom too) and also she’s harder to control then.
I could preach a long sermon about this…
The appropriate response would be to tell them their thighs are fat and walk out without paying.
OK, not serious.
But it might give them empathy for the experience of chumps.
Well, I’d change my hairstylist. I don’t know how old she is BUT she probably minimizes for one of the following reasons: 1) She sleeps with or has slept with married men so the incompatibility remark reflects her world view. 2) She grew up with a father or mother who cheated and she does the mental gymnastics of justifying it because that is what the cheater parent told her. She still has a need to believe that and buy into that narrative to try to maintain a normal parent/child relationship.
Secondly, there are A LOT of hairstylists out there. How about giving your hard earned money with a tip to a divorced hairstylist burned by a cheater and trying to support her kids? Or perhaps a hairstylist who had to move into and care for an aging parent to financially survive?
The third option is that believing it is about incompatability gives them a sense of control in their own relationships. If they bend themselves into a pretzel to maintain “compatability” they will be safe from cheating. It is comforting lie.
No, we weren’t compatible because I’m honorable and he isn’t.
It’s code for ‘ I don’t want to think about this or hear about your pain- next fluffy subject please’.
The more people you tell about your heartbreak, the bigger array of responses you’ll hear.
Everything from righteous anger and offers to do bodily harm to the FW to sharing a similar terrible story and those who cut you off with a ah…ok..er…oh well you’ll be fine. How’s that beautiful weather today?
It’s not that most strangers you tell want to be mean or superficial- most have no idea and don’t know what to say when confronted by such pain and upset. They cast around for something, anything to lighten the mood for their own comfort. They don’t understand until it happens to them.
I would have countered that with “ yes well, I’m not a liar or a cheat who thinks nothing of ruining other people’s lives, so you might be on to something with that incompatible theory of yours.”
my hairdresser listened to me and for that i’m thankful. it’s a lot. she is older and has heard it all, and is divorced, too. but still. i did gift her a case of the divorce wine. have i ever talked about the divorce wine? 45+ cases. anyway, i gave all the wine away, and it was a big job, and she received a really nice case of italian reds, because she DESERVES IT.
she recently retired and i’m happy for her new life. she’s living it!
as for people with not a caring bone in their bodies and the need to say things like “well, what part did you play in it?” and “you’re whistling. that’s rude for a woman” and “a woman of your age should not be wearing shorts” and “you just don’t understand the excitement of an affair” i laugh and say something along the lines of: “you’re weird” and “i think you should speak to your therapist”, and, i have been known to say “fuck off.”
I’m glad she benefited from the Divorce Wine.
Lovely! 🥰
I’m interested to hear from the men Chumps here what the male perspective is all about. If you told a locker room buddy that your wife had cheated, or told a barber that you barely know, or your brother or best friend. What do men tell each other when this happens?
I told the truth and the guys I told were shocked. Then they tried to date her
Yikes.
Sorry & yeah, doesn’t surprise me.
Actually though… that kind of shouldn’t have shocked me (it obv did). I mean, to their minds you announced to these men that your ex-wife is “easy”. Ugh.
Oh my gosh!
Da fuq… I’m sorry!
A few years ago, when I was seeing a new stylist and had immediately flat-out rejected her idea of how to style my hair because my husband wouldn’t like it, I took a moment to think and realized that I didn’t have to *care* what he thought or didn’t think any more. He no longer had the power to dictate what I wore, how I wore my hair, where I was “allowed” to go or when I went to the bathroom. So I impulsively said, “Wait a minute — let’s try that.”
“What about your husband?” she asked.
“Oh, he’s with his ex-girlfriend again.” I probably said it pretty scornfully, because the stylist said something to the effect of, “You know you can’t be mad at her, right? He’s the one who made vows to you, she didn’t.” I bit my tongue, but stayed silent. It’s rather intimidating speaking up to someone you don’t know well who is wielding sharp scissors right next to your eyebrows.
And the conversation drifted, somehow, into domestic abuse. She told a story about how someone she knew had an abusive husband and wouldn’t leave, and why wouldn’t she leave? That’s crazy! I told my truth of leaving an abusive husband and how/why it is difficult. And I mentioned that they husband I’d left, the one who was so controlling that I was afraid to come. home with a hair style he didn’t like, was abusive and how I’d had to make a plan to be able to leave him safely.
“He’s abusive? You’ve GOT to tell the new girlfriend! You have to warn her. Girl code!” Wait a minute — what?
She just got done telling me that the new girlfriend/ ex-girlfriend owed me nothing, but now she’s telling me that *I* owe *HER* something? The woman who cheated with my husband, knowing he was married owes me nothing, but I owe it to her to warn her that he’s abusive?! That’s some stupid shit. Schmoopie had been engaged to him twice before I came along and we married in our 40s. I’m sure she knew he was abusive.
I paid the stylist, even left her a tip. But I never went back. People will judge, even if they don’t know what they’re talking about. Some of them will even tell you what they’re thinking. I’ve learned (well, most of the time) to not bring up certain things unless I have a planned rebuttal for the stupid shit people say. I was still flummoxed when my primary care physician, in response to my saying that yes, I had been under significant stress but Mother was now in a Memory Care unit and I was able to go back to work, said, “Oh, *I* would never be able to do that to my MOM. She took care of you when you were a child, you owe it to her to take care of her.” My mother was abusive — verbally, emotionally and physically. My earliest memory is of her throwing me down the stairs and throwing the vacuum cleaner after me. Alzheimer’s didn’t make her LESS abusive. That physician had no idea what I owed my mother. I changed PCPs, too.
I’m so sorry, Ruby, and I hope the life you gained is magnificently peaceful and filled with love.
People sometimes assume survivors of violent crime are spared these kinds of remarks but not so. For instance, in response to my being harassed and violently assaulted at work by a company director as an intern, a former teacher of mine said, “Some people just don’t get along. You’re like oil and water.” ??
Yep, even sexual harassment, false imprisonment, terrorist threat, injury assault and attempted rape are really “compatibility” issues. It reminds me of a line from the musical Chicago: “I guess you could say we broke up because of artistic differences. He saw himself as alive and I saw him dead.”
In the situation above, the minimization was obviously due to politics because the woman was married to a friend and colleague of the perpetrator who himself turned out to have a penchant for hitting on underage students. This is partly why I decided to prosecute– not only to send a message to the perp but also to Vichy bystanders. Then they could deal with the “compatibility” issue of being professionally and socially tarred by association with a convicted sex offender.
Shocking exchanges like that are what originally trained me to be careful about oversharing, especially in that raw state immediately following trauma when trying to gather allies and wide support are a natural and sometimes life-saving impulse or, at the very least, sanity-saving.
It boils down to safety in numbers. If you think about what survivors are really seeking when they frantically “throw the net wide” to draw in allies, it’s to address the fact that victimization makes the whole world in general seem very unsafe. People are trying to feel safer whether in a real sense or to ward off the traumatic “infection” of nihilism, cynicism, isolation and hopelessness.
The common sense remedy for a socially-induced wound is social support. Personally, I don’t think survivors suffer from “low self esteem” so much as low esteem for the world so it helps to “repopulate” the world with decent people. But the danger is that any minimizing or split-blaming comment can instantly re-traumatize (called the “second injury” of trauma). The blamey bystander is saying in effect, “No, the world is not safe and you’re outnumbered and will always be alone and at risk.”
That message is so shattering that I quickly got into the habit of first poking around in indirect, hypothetical ways to find out where someone stands on particular issues (“How about that OJ Simpson, huh?”). If the person gives off a positive ping, sometimes it’s enough just to know they strongly condemn various forms of abuse and injustice and there’s no need to disclose anything personal. It can still satisfy the ally-gathering impulse. And sometimes you find out someone reflexively sides with perpetrators and can dodge the “second injury” while also writing that person off the “safe” list and chucking them out of your life if possible.
I managed to repopulate my world with a lot of truly safe people over time which has helped in being more selective and quicker to ditch the split-blamers because I’m not suffering from some social scarcity fallacy. My mother, who wasn’t at all religious but had a biblical quote for every occasion, would always say in regards to social selectivity, “Thou runneth neither hot nor cold but lukewarm and I shall spit thee out.”
I prefer to surround myself and my kids with hot tickets, not morally fence-riding lukewarm blobs.
Amen to all of that. You encapsulated the trauma of survivors perfectly!
FW and I had a mutual friend, or so I thought, and his first response to finding out was “well, I just know he can be the good guy that I think he is.” This, coming from a dude that had a minor in psychology! (side note: FW asked him to talk to and try to help me, as at the time, I didn’t have anyone to talk to and didn’t have a therapist yet, and with his degree FW thought he could help.)
And when he found out about the domestic violence attack (strangulation) FW put me through when I discovered his cheating on his phone, he just kind of wrote it off, like “it was a one off, cuz he was being caught.” So that makes it okay to almost strangle me to death, because he was “caught” ? WTF? And is there a certain level of bad that it has to be achieved to be “bad enough” abuse. Did I actually have to DIE for it to be bad enough?
The last straw for me with this “friend” was when I said, FW was still having unprotected sex with me, so I feel I was raped by deception the whole time he was cheating. And the “friend” was just very dismissive, saying “oh, that’s not really rape, is it?” I said, “yes, it is. I was not given the info I needed to give true consent, which of course, if I had known he was cheating on me, no way would I have given him sex. And rape doesn’t always have to be violent. It is about consent, period, violent or not.”
I could hardly control my anger to finish saying, “you have 2 sisters and a mother, would you like any of them to be treated like I was by any man? It is outright abuse and you need to stop thinking like you are thinking. And I can see now, why you are a 53 year old man who has never been married! I am done talking to you. Goodbye.”
And that was 3 years ago, never spoke to that POS again. He was clearly on my husband’s side, still thought of him as “generally a good guy who just made a mistake(s)”
Fuck that guy and any guy/gal just like him that thinks the same way. I hope one day they get betrayed by the love of their life, have their life destroyed, lose everything, etc., and then they will know.
That’s horrible. 😡 The problem with people like that is, even if all that happened to them, they still wouldn’t necessarily learn how wrong they were. There is the common phenomenon (which I don’t believe has a name) of people who think it’s a travesty when something bad happens to them but that other people it happens to somehow deserve it. It’s their defense mechanism for having no empathy.
Okay, so that guy has cheated himself and strangled a woman or wants to at least “leave that option open”. Plus “hos before hos”. BARF. I’m extremely sorry that you wear abused that way! But unfortunately very on point with my own psychotherapist experiences.
Paging KatiePig, pretty sure she had the perfect response to this minimizing BS.
Dear Salon lady, I do not like my hair cut, there fore I will not pay $ you. It is obvious we are not compatible. I knew you were not doing a good job early on, but I could not talk to you. I did not think you were paying attention to my head, and were looking about with interest rather than focusing on me. I kept very still and quiet so you would not guess I was not happy. But alas, I was not happy. Also, no tip as I don’t tip if we are not compatible. Toodles.
😂
Most of the handful of strangers I told were great. One of them correctly guessed that FW was emotionally abusive and shared her own story of a toxic ex. There was one who tried very hard to convince me to reconcile, but he was singing another tune by the end of that conversation. He proudly told me about a relative who was great friends with his cheating ex who had run off with another man after more than 20 years together. It was his example of what to do if reconcilation fails. I convinced him that his relative was asking for trouble having somebody that callous, selfish and irresponsible in his life. I’d like to think the lesson stuck, but it probably didn’t. Idiocy is a superpower for some people. You might be able to penetrate the forcefield for a moment, but the shields will just go back up. They hang on to stupid like it’s their mama’s soothing, life-giving breast.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to debate them, a simple; “That’s bullshit and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” should suffice for an all purpose comeback. The defenders of fuckwittery aren’t worth the energy to produce a detailed response.
As to the question of how to handle the stylist, you could sit there stone faced and silent until she was done, then when you are ready to pay the bill, inform her she isn’t getting a tip because you don’t find her compatible. “After all, as you say, personal incompatibility justifies all sorts of behaviour, doesn’t it?” Then breeze out of the salon, never to return. Just don’t imagine she’ll learn anything from it, because that’s probably not going to happen. Those acts of defiance are for your own satisfaction only.
Thanks to everyone for their helpful thoughts!
You made me realize that part of the reason I sympathize with Ex is that he’s basically lost everything. He was quite successful and semi-famous. However, his cheating got him fired from his high profile and high paying job. And the articles in the press about him made him a national laughingstock. And if he comes back to the US, he’ll be put in jail for failure to pay support (there’s a warrant out for his arrest)
But none of that is my fault — it’s all the result of his own very bad choices
I don’t think there is evil intention behind this remark. What do you say when confronted with this admission. I’m so sorry is an option but that invites further discussion and what do you say when you’re uncomfortable. Could she say, I’m uncomfortable with this topic. She’s cutting hair. Lots of hairdressers like to chitchat but what if this is just something she wants to avoid. There are lots of ways to reply back that don’t imply blame or judgement. Yup. Yup different values. Because in fact, we aren’t compatible. And I thank god for that.
Thank you all for responding! I think the hairstylist’s comment threw me a bit, but I’ve recovered. Yes, a Fuckwit is not compatible with me. However, we were compatible likely because he mirrored my values. Now he mirrors another’s, a rather superficial one. HS is a very good stylist so I’ll keep seeing her. I’ll just not bring such personal topics up again with her. Have a blessed day 🙏
I’ve changed my circle of suppliers. One by one. The first was my chiropractor who asked what schmoopie’s name was (from the same very small home town) and then said, “Oh I like her. Last time I talked to her I knew how unhappy she was in her marriage. I really felt bad for her.” Yep – that’s why her and FW were having sex in the closets at their workplace. So sad!
I went back one more time to this chiropractor which I pay for out of pocket, and I thought, “Why am I giving her my money? She’s not the only chiropractor in town!”
A lesbian friend taught me years ago that it’s important where I spend my money. My dollars should align with my values. And that now includes abusers and cheaters and those who believe it always takes two to tango. My life is much better for it. I feel supported and that I won’t need to defend myself while im getting my teeth cleaned.