Huw Edwards: His Double Life and Faithful Chump Vicky Flind
Vicky Flind is every chump. The betrayed wife of disgraced BBC radio presenter Huw Edwards — having suffered a very public and humiliating D-Day last week, as the Sun tabloid revealed Edwards’ paid hookups with young men — has put her cheating husband’s pain first.
She’s the brave face. The protective mother thinking of her five children. The faithful partner concerned only for Edward’s mental health. Folding her own trauma into tiny origami shapes and stuffing them into the recesses of her soul. Where they will stay forgotten and unmentioned.
Flind isn’t allowed to have a breakdown. No quiet hospital room or strong partner managing life on the home front for her. There’s no one standing up and saying Vicky Flind needs some privacy right now, except Vicky Flind. The woman had to out her own husband to the BBC “on his behalf.”
Because of course. Because chump invisibility is so baked into our societal narrative. Of course his pain matters more. The man who fucked his way into this mess. Vicky must be strong for them both. Do the difficult things because his path is harder.
If anyone thinks of Vicky Flind, it’s to second guess her marriage. What happens in a marriage is “complex” and no one’s business. Surely she knew her husband was bisexual? But the important thing is she’s not angry. She’s brave and supports this sad, depressed man who risked her health with rando sex. Every single person will attest to what a competent, good person Vicky Flind is.
What if Flind had had the mental breakdown and was hospitalized? Would anyone care? Would anyone shame Huw Edwards and shout “Look what you’ve done!” as they have with Rupert Murdoch and the Sun?
Here’s the problem with double lives — they can be weaponized. Which is why anyone with a security clearance is vetted for blackmail material. Is it disgusting the right-wing tabloids went after Huw Edwards? It’s predictable. The best protection against not being driven into disgrace is to not act disgracefully. It reminds me of this brilliant political ad by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel “Who can you trust NOT to show you their penis in a professional setting?”
Yes. Radical idea. Don’t hire the guy with the double life and wandering dick. He’s taking up the place of a competent person who doesn’t have a wandering dick.
I refuse to be so cynical as to think they all have wandering dicks. Or that we shouldn’t care about a public person’s integrity. That we should excuse powerful men with pervy tendencies. That’s the slippery slope to Harvey Weinstein. Huw Edwards allegedly creeped on coworkers. That’s a firing offense. He had a double life, spent a lot of money, and had risky sex with strangers. That’s a divorcable offense.
I could care less if Huw Edwards is having a bad day in a padded private room. I care that Vicky Flind is his chaos janitor. And people act like that’s a good thing.
She’ll be flat out called a bigot and smeared if she gets too angry about it. All a male FW has to do is suck a couple of dicks in addition to all the other cheating and the public will support HIM and talk about how hard it must have been for him to be stuck with a wife who doesn’t support him being true to himself. Even if they say what he did was wrong, there will be a “well, it is so hard to be gay! Poor gay people!” Fucking spare me. It is the fuck not hard in 2023.
I feel awful for her. There’s nothing she can do right here. This will probably totally destroy her life for at least a couple years. Even on this blog, there are tons of commenters who have loads of sympathy for the poor gay and bisexual cheaters. It makes me want to vomit.
Nothing wrong with being gay or bisexual. Or ace, or pansexual, or whatever. So long as you’re with consenting adults.
PLENTY wrong with cheating!!!
KP– As you brilliantly put it about a week ago, no decent person would ever skirt that close to “minor.” To paraphrase Red from Shawshank Redemption, to be seen as “gay,” Edwards would have to be human first. But he’s a child molester and his orientation is utterly and completely beside the point. I don’t care if 17 is technically legal in some places. Edwards preyed on a child and it’s likely the exploitation fueled the child’s descent into severe addiction. This could end with the death of a victim. The pleas of the child’s mother for the money to stop are heartbreaking. So I’m far less interested in Flind’s role as “chump” than the possibility that she could have acted as an accessory to a child molester. She did the only thing she could do to at least partly dispel the latter by outing Edwards. But because she didn’t follow through and immediately stand with the family of the child victim and is instead pouring gas on the putrid fire of casting predatory pedophilia as sad sausage “mental illness” (never mind how this might whip up violent hate by further feeding the bigoted notion that LGBT is synonymous with preying on children or how even this tars the mentally disabled– the most statistically endangered population– with the taint of criminality), she’s still complicit. Because of this, I have no feelings of fellowship for her as a chump as I might have had she done the right thing full out. If I’m being cynical, I’d suspect all she’s doing with the sad sausage public display on Edwards’ behalf is guarding her family and their assets from lawsuits or worse in the case the investigation digs up technically criminal evidence. If anything, I feel for her five children and wonder if any had been victimized by their father– even in terms of emotional incest– and whether their mother had ever turned a blind eye.
I did the right thing and was nearly driven to suicide in return for it. You don’t understand how people react to this. They absolutely will excuse pedophilia and find a way to blame her. “Well, he didn’t get to experience his true self while young so of course he’s attracted to young boys.” (That’s one I heard.) To be clear, it’s not gay men who excuse this. It’s pedophiles (both gay and straight) and also idiot straight people who desperately want to seem progressive and be seen as allies to the point that they’ll sacrifice their own children for it.
Of course the perp’s defenders tried to drive you off a ledge. They might have done more to this end if they could have gotten away with it. In my experience, the worse and more stigmatized any offender’s offense, the more scorched earth the silencing campaign against the whistleblower will be which would naturally make pedophiles and their apologists the most dangerous death squads of silence on earth.
Unfortunately, I do know how people react to those who report sexual assault either as victims or witnesses. I understand how this creates a gang-mental-rape dynamic which is even more traumatizing than the initial traumatic experience. It’s sometimes referred to as the “second injury” of criminal victimization and I can attest that it’s both shattering and horrifying because it creates the impression that one is surrounded by the enemy, the entire world is unsafe and there’s nowhere to run. The damage of it radiates far and wide by terrorizing innocent bystanders who then see the whistleblowers made examples of like heads on pikes lining castle bridge. If it wasn’t for two wise friends and allies who’d both survived trauma and one who’d also survived violent racial discrimination in Mississippi as a child and knew better than anyone what happens to whistleblowers and truth-tellers, I might have lost my mind during the criminal case against a violent workplace stalker (and his five flying office monkeys).
I share your irony about mainstream progressives using a situation involving pedophilia as an opportunity to virtue signal for LGBT. This has to make every decent LGBT person cringe in total horror. It would be like carnivores virtue signaling in support veganism by using Hitler as a poster child. Vegans everywhere would go into convulsive vomiting. Like we were chatting about the other day, I suspect this bizarre reaction is a confession of either guilt or complicity with similar offenders in their personal lives. They are either dangerous or danger trails in their wakes.
I was just reading the undertold story of Malcolm X’s mother. An educated woman from Grenada who tried to raise her children with self respect and belief in equality in the Jim Crow south, first her house was burned down several times by the KKK to silence her and her pastor husband. She rebuilt and refused to stop advocating. Then her husband was lynched. When she tried to seek justice and dared to contradict the state’s absurd claim that her husband committed suicide, the state took away all her children. She finally broke and died in a mental asylum.
A weaker person would have broken long before. The thing that makes it seem like Malcolm X ultimately followed his mother’s model is that, when Hoover had the CIA set up full time phone surveillance of him, they were apparently very frustrated that he wasn’t a FW or hypocritical abuser but was actually faithful to his wife and family. They had nothing to use to blackmail him into silence.
Sorry, Malcolm X’s birthplace, Nebraska, is considered the Midwest. I spent a year in school in the Midwest and clearly didn’t major in geography. I get confused where the lines for the south are drawn. Where the Indiana twang begins??
I still struggle with suicidal thoughts, and I’m one of the successful chumps. I have a LOT to say about the universe of prostitution, based on what I discovered in my husband’s text messages.
I still can’t fathom that FW patronized teen-themed streaming porn pages. It’s like having someone hold you at gunpoint, tape your eyes open and then forcibly making you gaze into the seventh ring of hell. I wasn’t raised religious or with rigid sexual prohibitions but I can’t help smelling rotting corpses all around the margins of sex work and pornography, particularly after it was revealed that so many performers in mainstream porn are trafficked children, not “young looking adults” as the apologists claim; that supposed “simu-rape” is often genuine violent rape and that many of the people appearing in current streaming content have been dead for years as a direct result of the inhumanity and violence of the sex trade. Call me hypersensitive. The dead bodies of suffering children really bother me.
I’m not complaining about being introduced to these grim realities. What I mind is how I was introduced. I fully subscribe to Thomas Hardy’s view that “If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.” I forced myself not to shut my eyes and turn away when my seventh grade communications teacher made us watch, Night– Elie Wiesel’s film on the Holocaust. If other people can suffer something, it’s not too much to ask that the rest of us at least abstractly learn about it the better to stop if from happening again. I understood that even as a kid. But what I could have read about in books, I can’t seem to process in “affiliative” exposure. I never signed on for “associative horror.”
I’m working my way through Pornocracy on Netflix. It’s mindblowing and disheartening on many levels, but nonetheless a glimpse into the realities of the huge business and huge cultural phenomenon of streamed porn. In scenes, the young “actresses” working “willingly” are girls who talk themselves into being cool with whatever they are goaded into. They tell stories of their violent shoots while trying to giggle it away. The inside look at how the bar for thrill keeps getting higher and higher in terms of amount of transgression/violence that is being consumed is truly chilling. I’m so cynical these days. Conventional cis-het romance and the institution of marriage now look to me like the rules for locking down and keeping naive one girl child sex dispenser / house slave, while still having the cultural support (bro code) to buy or solicit other people as sex dispensers.
To me this Huw guy is absolutely nothing special … throwing money at a child to see how much power he can exercise over them, all while duping the missus. Her reaction also seems pretty standard reconciliation stage stuff (denial, minimizing, trying to stand by her man), if we presume she was successfully lied to and believed she had a good faithful marriage. All just regular, horrifying, married-men-buying-children-not-caring-if-said-children-are-ultimately-unalived-by-trauma except for the international media profile attached to this man and story. Gross and I hope once his wife settles into reality that she finds her way here.
I’m going to force myself to watch the film.
HOAC, you’re assuming she knew. Which isn’t necessarily the case, entitled fuckwits are capable of leading a double life, without the knowledge of those closest to them, for years. As many of the chumps on this blog, who’ve gone through something similar, can attest to. And even those of us who’ve been cheated on plain and simple, can attest to the utter shock when we found out.
I agree that abusers like this excel in covering their trails and gaslighting their families. I wasn’t assuming that she knew all along but that her actions when she found out were unfortunately fence-riding, not the full-fledged “right thing.” It’s the public fence-riding on the issue which brings up questions of whether she may have had prior inkling but it’s impossible to know. One could assume she had zero prior knowledge and we’re now watching her in the throes of cognitive dissonance, partly wanting to minimize, partly wanting to shout it from the rooftops. I’d be more understanding if she was the only victim or if any other co-victims were adults. But I think everyone loses the luxury of fence riding when there are child victims involved or disabled victims involved.
She just found out. Her world fell apart. I don’t fault her how she’s dealing with this. I hate the narrative that she has to be strong for HIM. I hate that she felt compelled to do that.
I can’t help but relate to the bamboozling effects of shock but a child being victimized always trumps my shock. To quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When they come for the innocent without crossing over your body, cursed be your religion and your life.”
To be clear, I would have sympathy far beyond “chump fellowship” with the partner of an outed child molester or any criminal sexual predator who completely distanced themselves the moment they knew. There was a film titled “8mm” years ago which starts with an elderly wife hiring a PI to investigate the identity of a young woman in what appears to be an 8mm snuff film which she discovers in her late wealthy husband’s safe. The wife kills herself when it’s confirmed her husband had been involved in the deaths of victims. I’m not a Joel Schumacher fan but that part of the film stands out in memory as one of the most disturbing moments in cinema. I can understand how the shock and trauma and feeling of taint by association of someone knowing they had lived in proximity with absolute evil for years has to be among the worst experiences in existence. It feels like evil wins another round when even unwitting bystanders are destroyed by it along with direct victims. It’s enough to expose and step away from the monster and bystanders are not required to throw themselves on the flames.
Thank you a thousand times. I was going to send the article to you, but I knew I’d be one of many.
I’m especially pissed off because I loved the BBC coverage of the late Queen’s funeral and then the Coronation. Huw was front and centre.
Poor Vicky. Five children is a lot to set such a shitty example of enabling and covering up.
And as for Huw, cowering in his mental health unit because someone dared to tell the truth about his behaviour – bollocks to you, mate. You’re not sick. You’ve just got shitty character.
Totally agree with you Lola, scuttling off to the Priory, because he’s ‘depressed’? And leaving his wife to run interference for him? Bollocks to that, double! The BBC is an absolute cesspit if you ask me. They protected Savile and Harris for years, now Edwards (and I don’t believe for one second this wasn’t known). I subscribe to the ToL, and every single article on this shitbag is “comments are turned off”. Quelle surprise. I hope his wife divorces his nasty arse.
I think about all the emotional work I did in the past for men. Now, if a guy is at sorts, instead of doing “his work” for him, I tell him therapy works & leave it at that. They’re truly surprised & the look I’m sure they’re giving me is, “aren’t you going to take on my boo boo & soothe it for me?” Nope. I’m not your mom. I think women need to shed this societal expectation including the title of “work wife”. One coworker had me help him through his separation, but when I was having difficulty, I got nada from him. Done & done. I hope Hue the Pee-uw’s wife dumps him & his boo-boos & works on HER trauma.
So true, Orlando! Frankly, it’s kind of weird for us to be mad when people don’t act like adults, when we HAVE NEVER REQUIRED THEM TO DO SO! Too many people (especially women, it’s what we’re raised to do!) don’t even require others (often men, but also their adult kids, female friends …) to clearly articulate a need and a request for help or support. WE figure out what they need and WE do it, and then are shocked when there isn’t reciprocity or, often, even appreciation.
I know with my ex I made his entitlement worse, over the years, but stepping up far too much, far too often. Classic ever-increasing-over-functioning.
Too soon old, too late wise.
With abnormal people such as sociopaths and abusers it doesn’t matter what our expectations are. They will do what they want. For them to find an over-functioning, uncomplaining partner just makes their life easier. It would never make them different.
The thing I can’t help wondering is whether all that one-sided generosity wasn’t induced via threats of some kind, even if deeply veiled. I relate to being naturally a bleeding heart who jolts at the sound of a baby crying (anyone’s baby). But I also think my “cooperation” in my own exploitation was progressively coerced. Natural empathy doesn’t appear to be enough of an assurance of advantage for FWs and so they employ all sorts of elaborate yanks to gain it. The concept of “coercive control” is only recently being explored. Are we all that naturally or culturally chumpy or are we being hoodwinked? Sincere question.
Or as a friend says:
Too soon old, not dead yet.
This is so awful. What does it matter who they cheat with: male, female, farm animal? A double life is a double life. If you’re conflicted about your sexuality, here’s a tip: don’t commit to someone under false pretenses, stay single. The fact that she might feel she has to support this mess or be labeled a homophobe is missing the point entirely. Double lives, lies and duplicity are non negotiables. I hope she wakes up, get a good attorney and gets on with her life.
I think there are tiers of evil and it does matter if the “cheating” involved rape or exploitation (which is also rape) of a minor child. I think animal rape would also strike me as a level worse than a married person having sex with a consenting adult co-FW.
I doubt he was “conflicted”. He just liked having a wife appliance.
Just ick. Really ick. I hope Vicky figures this out for what it was and gets away from the chaos.
A therapist friend of mine commented yesterday that the best side effect of integrity is peace. I thought about that a long time, but it’s true. If you have nothing big and ugly to hide, you’ll have peace within, even if your outer circumstances are chaotic.
I found that during my divorce when it had all been put on the table with my attorney. He wrote a fair, decent agreement and FEDEX’ed it to my STBX with what he called a “there’s a new sheriff in town” letter. I remember feeling solid and oddly peaceful despite knowing how that would utterly infuriate my STBX. No more secrets, and I was headed to a better place away from the chaos.
Except narcs have peace too as being an utterly selfish POS and then blaming everyone else is egosyntonic.
But yes, as a normal person doing the right thing does feel good.
I too am grateful to my then-attorney for sending my ex a similar letter. She basically was like: you’re wrong, we’re right, you’ll be skewered in court, and it will be humiliating cause every nasty text and email you sent will be part of the public record. Was such a relief to have a bulldog on my side. I try to do that for others now, even if just in a friend capacity. Advocacy matters.
Yes, he asked me if I wanted to review the letter before he sent it, and I said no. I completely trusted him by then. I did give my STBX a heads-up that it was coming though, which we agreed was a good idea.
Then today I actually saw a photo on Facebook of my original attorney (now retired) and his associate who was his backup and then handled my closeout. They were part of a foursome at a golf tournament raising money for a domestic abuse shelter that I support.
It cheered my heart to see them together again. Those guys were everything I had hoped for and more in my divorce.
I absolutely love your therapist friend’s comment. The best side effect of integrity is peace.
Vicky is the 5-kid-super-spouse-appliance and her cheater is massive FW-TV-tool of the highest order. The deceptive FW now haz a massive sadz — this epic PR fail in the form of his tawdry secret sexual basement that is ugly splayed all over the internet. Forever. Any FW mental health issues are not because he has destroyed his wife and family either. Self pitying self indulgent FW doing self pitying cowardly FW things while the good old appliance keeps his image bolstered and attempts to clean up his disaster by being stoic, brave, supportive. What a trainwreck.
I should add in reply to CL’s question as to whether people would care if Vicky was hospitalized, as a result of the trauma of discovering her life is a lie and her life actually at risk — the answer, from deep personal experience is: no.
In reality any mental health hospitalization plays into the “she is crazy / difficult and unstable narrative.” Doesn’t matter if it’s traumatic, or if she is at risk, not one bit. The cheater always gets the hall pass. It’s vile thinking and completely anachronistic.
Thankfully CL is always on point so we get to self soothe knowing someone truly gets it 🎯
I was hospitalized about 3 months after dday. I was blindsided & FW exited stage left within weeks. I was falling apart without adequate support. It seems everyone was concerned about FW’s state of mind & how shocking it was that he was throwing away a 27 year relationship. What about me & my needs? When I was released a week later it was crickets from the in-laws I THOUGHT were my family for almost 27 years. Add that abandonment as well to the whole slew of traumas suffered from discovering a double life.
Yes my in laws abandoned me quickly after I finally left. I lost all my nieces and nephews. It’s very painful.
It does not matter how long you have been part of the in-laws family. The overwhelming majority of them side with their blood relative. I’m sorry you went through that. I didn’t particularly like my in-laws so it didn’t hurt very much.
From what I hear all this was known about and covered up by the higher echelons for ages, à la Jimmy Saville! And to think the BBC used to be respected!!! I wonder how many people have cancelled their TV licences because of this! Another thing though, while he was the face of the BBC preaching about how we all had to follow the rules during covid, he apparently ignored lockdown rules (as did so many of them) to meet up with one of his side pieces! Take him to the cleaners Vicky!
Yep, it’s all coming out, hypocritical piece of shit. As I said above, the BBC is a cesspit. I haven’t paid their foul licence fee for years, and I never will.
What really gets my goat is—why have five kids with this woman if what you really want is to be with many young gay men??? Why do FWs build a family and then act like it’s such an inconvenience to them “living their best lives”???? Ugh. I just can’t. 🙁
I have a 17 year old. Not a man yet, still a kid. He was recently looking in the mirror and noticing that the his once delicate brow ridge is starting to get more masculine and he said something like “I think it’s too late for me to get a sex change operation. Good thing I don’t want one but what happens to the boys who wait until they’re men? Could they die from having their bones cut?” So even he knows he’s not quite there yet. Consequently, I’d hunt down any adult who tried to groom or prey on him, developing supraorbital ridge or not.
Because it has nothing to do with being gay. He just wanted to abuse a woman.
Because they want to have their straight life and all the side thrills, too. Just another version of “have your cake and eat it, too.”
I think it’s part of the act. They are showing to the world that they are straight or a “family man” or whatever. It’s honestly shocking to me how many cheaters have large families. I have five. The ex is not in their lives.
I’m gonna take everything at face value for a sec.
If Edwards has dealt with severe depression by propositioning minors and coworkers instead of seeking out medical and therapeutic help, he’s not a safe person to be married to.
If his way of dealing with depression destroys his career, exposed his 5 kids to public shame, and manages to put him out of the line of fire when his actions become public knowledge, he’s unsafe as a husband and father.
Use the time he’s busy receiving treatment to find an excellent lawyer because his wife needs to get out.
All of this is equally true if he turns out to be a sack of sh*t who is using mental illness as a cover story and a way to minimize his culpability. I vote for the second scenario as more likely – but either way – get out because he’s not behaving as a husband or father.
That’s just the point isn’t it? Whatever the motivation, they are not safe to be in relationship with. Let’s say your spouse brings home a bucket full of highly radioactive waste from the job at the nuclear power station. Does it matter if they are trying to poison you, going to sell it to criminals to pay off the mortgage or just thinks it is fun to watch it glow? It will kill you no matter what. But what if they remove it and say they are sorry and need professional help? Nope. A demonstrated lack of consideration is just too much to police.
I strongly doubt he’s suffering from depression. Depressed people don’t have the energy to do all the shit this fucker’s done.
Yeah, depression my ass, he’s hiding out or escaping blowback.
KB22 My FWs solution to all problems he caused was “I’ll just leave you alone for a bit”. It did actually work for two decades, so who can blame him for trying. Do something egregiously selfish or stupid, then adopt a blank stare, wander off for a bit and then come back later like nothing happened (a bit of gaslighting thrown in for good measure). The disappear and reappear act without ever taking responsibility also works for celebrities. Look at Wayne Carey in Oz. How is he still a public figure. He cheated with his BFs wife, glassed his partner, and tells outrageous lies no one could possibly believe, and yet he is still in the public life eye and is seen as some sort of heroic comeback guy (I assume he is a decent football commentator since he has no other redeeming features).
100% agree! Get out and don’t turn around. Have a very similar situation, less kids, but husband hooking up to have any kind of sex imaginable with any person he could find. Now he is the victim who is leaning into his mental health and alcoholism issues. Everyone feels sorry for him and expects me to be stoic. Divorce can’t happen fast enough.
I was surprised it was Huw Edwards but well done Vicky Flind for having the integrity to stop the speculation about his colleagues. It had got to the stage where the internet was accusing people who haven’t appeared on the BBC for years, if ever.
I haven’t kept up with what’s going on at “Aunty Beeb”, but it IS a cesspit and has been for a long time! Like any powerful organisation, especially one that gives predators easy access to their chosen victim group, the BBC has been rotten with predators for ages, because they’re drawn to such organisations, positions and occupations ( my psychiatric nursing tutor once warned us “Be aware, that psychiatric nursing attracts a lot of psychopaths, because of the power they can wield over vulnerable people!” This can apply to any profession/organisation that gives disordered people power over vulnerable ones!)! We all know, for instance, about Savile, Rolf Harris and others who worked at the BBC and were known to be preying on youngsters for decades yet nothing done about it!
However, I suppose it does make it easier for character assassins to attack Beeb employees who are not guilty of anything like the crimes committed by the above and there should not be condemnation without evidence.
I don’t care who exposed him, left wing rags, or right wing rags. Good on them, since the “respected” media didn’t do it.
Vicky, get out; run like your hair is on fire before someone files a suit and takes your half. If they deserve it, (and they might) they can have his half.
Excellent advice Susie Lee
Loved the Dana Nessel clip! There have been all male tickets for, well, forever. Personally I’d love to see the results of just a few hundred years of an all female government – just for fairness sake.
I thought the exact same thing, NA. No one would even think to comment on an all male ticket, since that’s been the standard since the dawn of time. How does anyone spewing the “all female ticket” claptrap not see the hypocrisy and misogyny in that?
OMG, their periods will sync up and they’ll go on a testicle removing rampage! LOL
Serious mental health issues, my ass. He’s probably faking it so he can hide from the paparazzi at a treatment facility, plus get sympathy for his wandering wand woes.
Funny how a FW an be fully functional as long as they can fuck around in secret and then -poof!- FW morphs into a person with “serious mental health issues” upon being discovered.
Nah, not buying it. Being a cheater and a liar is not a mental illness, and neither is embarrassment
about being outed. The coward won’t face up to what he’s done.
“Wandering wand woes” for the alliteration win 😂
Spot on! Just wanted to say I did send you an email at the address you gave, hope you have received it?
yeah. and then there’s the classic “i’ll hide from the police in the psych ward” which may well be at play in this situation. #whoknows
i used to be a psych nurse and each year there were a couple men who used the psych ward as a bolt hole. the police would call asking if we knew anything about them, they were wanted on charges of sexual interference, rape, etc. etc.
if they were good actors, they’d be placed on a 30-day hold and have a whole month to prep for the next phase of their lives.
It’s scary, DIFBTBAC, because people in a psychiatric ward are easy prey for predators. A relative of mine was in the psych ward with a guy like that. He suspected the guy was fucking other patients but couldn’t prove it.
You’re right that cheating and lying are not mental illnesses. They’re acts of will! They know exactly what they’re doing, they know it’s wrong and even evil, how much damage and pain it’d cause, but they do it because it suits them.
They may have personality disorders. They definitely have bad characters. But they can’t be allowed to hide behind yet another lie, the lie that they’re “mentally ill” because that lie is told and believed to absolve them of any guilt and responsibility, when they are responsible and they bloody well are guilty and should be treated as such. No forgiveness without repentance and you can only repent once you accept the blame and grow the backbone needed to feel the pain of your own guilt. I don’t see old Huw doing that, do you?
It would seem hardly any of them ever do!
^^^^^^
This! It’s the get out clause du jour. Vomit.🤮
Your comment is so astute. That’s why I love this site so much: The utter clarity.
Especially after years of being served word salad and covert aggression and mindfcks and all the other garbage FW think they can get away with because your trust was a choice you made out of love (and they cruelly exploited out of selfishness). This site is the antidote.
Frankly, the last two of the three FW I experienced in my life were not romantic cheaters, but they were nonetheless betrayers, so their tactics were all the same. The second FW, I was smart enough to go full NC as soon as he switched the devaluation phase (boy, was he shocked). The third is from my family of origin–where my susceptibility was programmed. With loss of our last parent, FW#3’s full entitlement and expectation to be the only one allowed to set conditions for what was “fair” became painfully transparent.
Please, CN and CL, keep on Seeing Right Through It.
£35,000 to a teenager, y’all. Thirty-five THOUSAND pounds. (That’s $45,800.) I guess that’s like a piece of gum to him, but that money could’ve done a lot of good in the world.
Talk about marital theft. I hope she comes to her senses.
and now we also know that the money was used for the teenager’s drug addiction… that’s just tragically heartbreaking.
“My husband must be mentally ill to be acting like this”, she told herself. “My poor husband.”
Later…
“Who is their right mind could possible behave like this including lying to and deceiving his wife and family?” “Yes, yes of course he’s having a breakdown – who wouldn’t under these circumstances?”
“Quite right then, let’s get on with it.”
Then,
“He’s an honorable man of course…BBC and all that.” “The children, our social status, our life, my role, I must protect.”
Privately,
“What about those girls he… no no
don’t think about it.” “All that money…never-mind, water under the bridge.” “How could he lie like that day in and day out and with his ugly temper when we were needing him to be here?… wait. a. minute.”
Slowly it begins to dawn on her.
I am so used to reading or hearing about infidelity by famous people I am almost numb. Whoever they are, and whoever they are interested in having sex with, or have had sex with is just a sad commentary on the duplicitous life many people live. Regardless of your true sexual orientation, or when you actually allowed yourself to “present” to other people, it is the lying and disregard for the other significant people in your life that is the real problem, for me.
If I finally admit to myself that I am attracted to my own sex, but I am in a committed relationship with a long-term partner of the other sex, AND especially if I have children, the last thing I should do is lie. Because the partner deserves better. Don’t risk your children’s well-being, your health, his health, and everything you have both worked for by trying to “have it all” and live two lives. If you want to have sex outside your marriage, tell your partner, and get a divorce. It seems so simple in retrospect. It’s all about being honest. Why do we value our material and superficial worlds more than we value our integrity?
I did not want to be a divorced mother with two sons. It was not fair that my world became “less than” because my partner could not control his cheating impulses. But life is not fair. He could have suddenly died, or I could have been diagnosed with a deadly disease, and my children would have had to face the consequences of that. You really cannot count on anything but yourself, and you have to monitor your own problems and impulses to do that. My biggest regret is not his weakness, but that I put up with so much and thought I could fix things and save something that had not ever been real. I wanted my dream more than I wanted to accept reality, and that cost me years of what might have been a better life for me. If we had not tried to “save” something that was already broken, if we had hammered out a divorce settlement with our children’s best interests in mind, if we had not believed in all the cultural mythology of the RIC, things would have been much better.
I don’t know these two people. I hope she gets some good therapy and legal advice and reconstructs a better world for herself and her children. He is in a much deeper hole and has made so many bad choices he has less chance for success in rebuilding his life, IMHO. But I hope he snaps out of it enough to provide for his children, and to try to have some type of a real relationship with them. He may not be capable of that. If so, I am callous enough not to care what happens with him.
” I wanted my dream more than I wanted to accept reality, and that cost me years of what might have been a better life for me. ”
Truth bomb.
When my now-ex was in the fevered grip of his autogynephilia and was making plans in his head to transition to life as the imaginary woman he imagined himself to be (a woman less than half his age and size), he actually wanted me to be the one to tell others for him. That’s right: he wanted me, his wife, to make the public announcement for him (I noted even then he didn’t ask the ex-student he’d been “experimenting” with to do this for him). I refused, because even for me, who had done far too much in my efforts to be “accepting” and “supportive,” that was a step too far.
And you know what? The thought of “how hard” it would be stopped him, and he decided to enjoy his fetish in private, continuing his life as a man while indulging his secret sexual life in the closet he made of our home.
And yes, when I left and told others why, I heard a lot of “that must be so hard on him” and “didn’t you know? (asked in a tone that implied of course I must have).
Adelante, I always enjoy reading about your ex. He’s a piece of work. You’re an English professor; you could write the screenplay 🍿! And you could portray the chumped wife as badass because you are 💪 and because it will go far to counter society’s view of the chumped spouse as someone who (choose one or all of the following): may have been complicit, must have known, perhaps caused it, was frigid, and definitely deserved it.
To be clear, I have sympathy for people who want to transition or whatever the issues might be. But I have no sympathy for betrayers and liars. And that this guy wanted you to make the public announcement shows me that he’s an insensitive, entitled, clueless coward.
I have sympathy for those who accept the challenge of honesty. It’s a lot harder for me to work up sympathy for people who “need” to be “true to themselves” but somehow also “need” to be untruthful to their spouse.
“That’s right: he wanted me, his wife, to make the public announcement for him (I noted even then he didn’t ask the ex-student he’d been “experimenting” with to do this for him). I refused, because even for me, who had done far too much in my efforts to be “accepting” and “supportive,” that was a step too far.”
Mind-boggling level of entitlement.
Some Brit needs to find the wife’s address and post a copy of Tracy’s book to her, with copies of today’s post and comments tucked inside.
This cheating p.o.s. follows Philip Schofield’s hot mess. 🤦♀️
Once again – the poor timid forest creature – who somehow had the mental wherewithal to live a double life and the physical ability to fuck men and his wife – who could sit at his family dinner table with his children and open presents at Christmas knowing he was spending money on male hookers to stuff his own stocking – now HE needs time to heal?
Again – whattheeverlovingfuck. We wouldn’t/didn’t excuse Ted Bundy for luring women into his car and killing them. We wouldn’t/didn’t excuse Bernie Madoff for scamming millions from his “investors”. YET… YET… we as a society still feel bad for cheaters? We accept their sadz apologies for the duplicity… we give them second chances… we make the Chumps suffer through putting sparkles on the narrative.
I’m just dumbfounded. It’s the 21st century. You can pretty much f*ck anyone you want, be any gender you want, live the life you want… cake is the only reason people cheat… they’re inherently selfish, narcissistic, and cruel.
My heart goes out to Vicky and her kids and as for Huw, I hope they lose the key to his padded cell.
How the hell do you even pronounce “Huw?” I’m sorry but that looks like it’s not finished. Like his parents started filling out the birth certificate and got distracted.
Is it pronounced like that noise you make when you hum and whistle at the same time? “Huwwwwwwww”
Huw is the Welsh version of Hugh
Think Hugh. The Welsh can’t spell! (Yes I am English.)
Yes, the English who place a confusing and useless ‘gh’ onto it. Maybe it should be more like Hyu or Hü.
It’s Welsh. Pronounced like Hugh.
I know tis creep from the UK News, he’d been reading it for a long time! Uuugh, dirty old devil! I bet his wife is mainly trying to be strong for the children’s sakes, as many chumps have to do, but blimey Luv, do yourself a favour and divorce him! He’s just another Phillip Schofield, using his power and status to prey on minions and living a dirty great lie that he not only loves and is loyal to you and the kids, but that he heterosexual, putting your health at extreme risk to sate his basest, most bestial urges!
I realised I couldn’t stand Schofield and Holly Willoughby one day whilst watching their inane chatter on This Morning, years ago! I hope that Edwards is made a pariah like Schofield has been because I never want to see his horrible mug on my telly ever again!
I worked for BBC. I’m appalled.
I often thought he was gay and was very surprised when i was told had a wife and family…
In my younger days, I as out with friends and went to a gay bar. I excused myself and since I was wearing a cute little button up romper I was gone a long time. When I returned the group said we thought you had found somebody. I said there are bi’s here too? The response is yes. It didn’t bother me there were bisexuals there but what bothered me is how could a bisexual commit to one or the other? It has the potential to lead to disaster if they aren’t honest when entering a relationship with anyone.
Maisie, it’s a misconception that being bisexual means you need to have sex with two genders. It just means you can. A bisexual can commit the same way hets and gay people do. It’s not like they stop being attracted to other people. They just stop doing anything about it. Whether you’re attracted to one gender or both, you just don’t act on those attractions.
The concept is so simple isn’t it, yet so many cheaters just can’t grasp it.
When you find the one and commit, you quit looking. If you find yourself in the wrong situation, you ethically end the relationship and then do whatever makes you happy.
Thank you, OHFFS. As a bisexual male chump, this stereotype makes me want to vomit. I can be attracted to a man or woman, but I choose to commit to a partner because I love that person. All I need is someone who is as invested as I am. No one goes around asking straight women how they could possibly commit to one man for the rest of their life when there are so many attractive men in the world. And no, I didn’t want to also have sex with men while married to my XW, just like heterosexual non-cheaters in relationships don’t feel the need to have sex with others outside of their marriage. The narrative of closeted cheaters ‘exploring oneself’ or trying to meet needs that their spouse could never meet because he/she doesn’t have the right body parts are nothing but excuses for shitty behavior. As CL always posts, it’s about character.
Thank you, so it is lack of commitment to the person you are pledged. And as said many times over character. Also I was much younger at the time ( early 20’s) and basing my experiences on past relationships (lots of characterless people)
On Newsnight the day the story broke and Hew is named there was a panel on with Victoria Derbyshire and all but 1 was saying poor Hew this is tragic .
His poor mental health the Sun should be scrapped like the news of the world ( a former Sunday Paper) this is a total breach of his privacy .
This is tragic for Hew he must be suffering so much and we know he’s got mental health issues he made a programme about it oh this is such a shame for him .
Except one man ( something Little-john is his name ) he said yeah but he knew what he was doing . He was doing behind his families back and he broke lockdown rules for his own wants then sat and read the news about lockdown rules . He got shot down , talked over and dismissed .
There was also a thread on Twitter saying eh he’s cheating on his wife and everyone is standing up for him he’s clearly got no morals . He also got shot down repeatedly . He soon defeated the thread but one guy said “ not much wonder he cheated his wife is a 23 Pinter “ ( meaning you’d have to be paralytic drunk )
No matter which walk of life it’s the poor cheater you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors poor toot is suffering must be the chumps fault . It does my head in
Oh Vicki ! I covered for my XHs x2 very bad behavior for eons. I am paying the price in guilt and shame for my children now. I got sick, while he was wandering. I got emotionally ill whenever he stayed and cheated, I gained weight obsessed and PROTECTED HIM because I would lose my nest and my life as I knew it. He had so many good points!! And….The darkness beyond was too much to walk into, until I did. And the taste of freedom now, fully and completely outweighs the trauma I went through to leave my very unstable cheater. I beg all the Vicki’s to save themselves and run..Take the Settlement now before the STD, before its all gone used for this other addiction(s). Before my daughters and sons mirror such awfulness
..
There is no cure except 12 step for life and you still have slips!! All the Vickis…and I was one..get help and get out. There is no other way.
I was hoping Tracy would cover this today
This literally boggles my mind
The way he’s portrayed as the victim. If his poor wife had spoken up against him or divorced him, she would be labelled as the bitter one
The world’s gone mad
Gender confusion and orientation shame are real things but have little to do with dishonesty for most adults in most parts of the first world. Wankers like this just use them as ready excuses for selfish and hurtful choices, as so many fraudulently claim FOO issues, low self-esteem, evil APs, etc. they don’t need mental health treatment, just consequences.
Poor him??!!??!!
I’m incredulous.
This man is a predator and pedophile.
Not poor him. That poor child, and that poor wife and that poor family.
Since when is poor mental health a justification for exploitation????
And that low life on that one link making excuses for him makes me want to hurl. Like how dare someone expose this creeps “private life”, first of all he is a criminal, and second like that low life “journalist” hasn’t salivated at revealing his political enemies “private lives”.
“Folding her own trauma into tiny origami shapes and stuffing them into the recesses of her soul.”
This is beautiful writing, CL! Love the image.
I could imagine the BBC itself is trying to manage this show, including having trolls shoot anyone down on the internet who tries to question the “poor Huw” excuse. They are trying to stop people from saying, “Pervs at the BBC – again?!!” After all, they did image management for enough other pervs over the decades, employees and politicians alike.
Apparently, Vicki Flind is a TV producer, and the 5 children she has with her cheater spouse range in age from 18 to 24. It’s entirely possible that she was blindsided. As a public figure, her husband undoubtedly has had many demands on his time professionally, making it relatively easy to be absent without raising suspicion. I would give her the benefit of the doubt about knowing about her husband’s sketchy behavior. You know (and certainly she knew) the tabloid press would hound her and her adult children for information, and it’s unsurprising that she offered a statement, especially since her husband is unavailable (justifiably or not, who knows–the mental issues/episodes she alludes to may have been suicide attempts), and the tabloid press is slavering. Let’s keep the blame squarely where it belongs. The rest is speculation.
Very well written with all the subtleties of victimization laid out. I don’t expect the social norms for the betrayed to change soon.
No where in this article did I see that this FW was arrested. He exploited and seduced a CHILD! This isn’t his only rodeo. Are they just going to allow this @$$hole to walk away from this? Where is Scotland Yard? Why haven’t they confiscated his phone(s), home and work computers? There has to be TONS of evidence there. This is not a “boys will be boys” scenario. Have the people in England gone completely mad? I don’t care what the age of consent is there. Or here. This dude is a predator.
ExWifeOfSparkleDick, I’m not offended in the least. I think you are totally right, and have done so for as long as I can remember, in fact I studied UK politics to try and be part of a solution and concluded it is not possible.
IMHO the UK has a very, very great sickness which is beginning to be revealed, it is seeping out from the basement of “The Establishment”, which is an actual thing when you are English. It is a two class system, quite officially, and the lower classes accept this because it is an honour to have a Royal Family and noble elites as part of your nation.
And you are probably not going to believe this, but what is factually also a thing is that private boys schools (confusingly called Public Schools) have a completely known practise of buggery going back to the past century at least. So the deafening silence may have to do with the many, many wives who also have such treasured husbands, fathers of their children, and who developed a taste for young men that will just not go away.
The police found no criminal wrongdoing. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/14/huw-edwards-the-unanswered-questions-hovering-over-presenters-future
I was about to add just this (had quite a day yesterday and only just reading in to this). I’m a ‘person of England’. ExWifeOfSparkleDick, ‘people of England’ haven’t ‘gone completely mad’. The police carried out their investigation and decided that there was no criminal activity in relation to any currently known aspect of the individual’s behaviour. I understand the desire to express views in strong terms. Suggesting that the people of a whole nation is ‘mad’ isn’t so far removed from FWs calling all chumps ‘crazy’. This type of turn of phrase is unhelpful and, speaking personally which is all I’m qualified to do, leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. My problem, I know.
I wondered about that, there were too many ad-walls for me to see everything.
Finding helpful and useful content on the Internet often feels to me like finding a needle in a haystack. Most days I am overwhelmed with feelings of despair caused by the tidal waves of depressing dreck that it seems humanity is, exposed to the light of day by the miracle of the Digital Age.
This site is one such goldmine and finding it feels like winning the lottery.
I am overcome by gratitude every day I read here, thinking about where I might be if I were on my own navigating the ultimate shit show that is infidelity, drowning without the invaluable ability to compare stories and find comfort in similarities. This is a priceless treasure trove of advice and suggestions, of experience strength and hope that I would be so lost without.
Waves of incredible pain and anger and fear still come into shore. This past month with the most recent landmine of lies which affects my daughter and I has ripped the scabs off again.
Thank you, Tracy and Chump Nation, for helping me to keep going.
There is no easy way forward after DDay. Leaving is excruciatingly painful, but attempting to stay would be worse. The end of my MIRAGE (not marriage, and Portia above said eloquent words about wanting my MIRAGE to be true) The relationship was OVER whenever it was he was contemplating whether to act on his desires or not. I now believe that means it was over long before the wedding. But he kept up the deception and I kept deciding to believe and trust him.
IMHO, leaving is the easier and softer way, made even easier and softer undoubtedly with the assistance of Tracy and all of you here.
Little Hammer and I thank you.
❤️
Thank you ChumpLady. This story and the other sociopath Gilgo Beach have been weighing on my mind because of the poor wives and children.
Sounds like my life. After 47 years I learned that there have been 47 years of Craig’s list cuties…male and female…mostly male. The last one was 25 when they got together and FE brought him to our home for Christmas and Thanksgiving….when our grown adult children were home to talk about the whole situation…. I was sooooo blind… I was never treated well. I got 2 Christmas presents that were actually nice in 47 years. My children were aware that he treated me poorly. All I knew is that for decades I wanted to die….I don’t want to die anymore. My life is so much better now that he is gone. Chump Lady is one super resource that truly helped save my life. I know so much about how to successfully kill yourself that I could write a book…wonder why I never did. Thank you Chump Lady.
I hated the BBC comment What happens in a marriage is complex and no one’s business.”
Everything reported that Huw did was so brazenly OUTSIDE of marriage.
And then the FW Huw is hospitalized for poor decisions, and poor character? I hope Vicky’s second call was to a lawyer.
The link is to Jonathan Pie — a satire account by British comedian Tom Hunter. He expresses truth bomb rants disguised as a news presenter. It’s NOT the BBC.
When the stories about the “presenter” broke, I know I read something similar on my BBC news app. It floored me that they considered this “a problem within marriage.” Now the news app has removed all pages about Edwards & I could not find the original statements by the BBC reporters.
My x is a pedophile who raped his little sister for eight years. When my marriage ended (12 hours after I discovered all this) NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN OUR LIVES (church, his family, the police, his employer) did a thing. I was painted as hysterical by the police, not owning my part by his parents, and, sadly, unforgiving by his evangelical victim/sister.
Also, his family knew about the incest/rape but said not one word for the twenty years we were married – even tho I had a six-year-old child at the time we met.
I have only spoken to him twice since then (2015) – and he had the gall to accuse me of ‘slandering his name all over town.’ I wish you could have seen his face when I observed that it is not slander when it is true.
Our world lets the handsome charmers get away with everything.
Roaring, I hope you escaped safely with your child. I had a similar experience of reporting child abuse and ending up being victimised and threatened, with all the institutions holding together and making me out a fraud. I found out several years later that this was because the local social services, child protection agency, police etc had been infiltrated by an international child pornography ring.
This was the exact conversation I had with my Superintendent after I returned from college during which time I witnessed many officers cheating on their spouses. I remarked that no enforcement agency should hire officers that betray their spouses. If they can break that vow there is no limit to their corruption.