Is the Madonna Whore Complex a Reason for Cheating?
A chump whose partner uses prostitutes wants to know if the “Madonna whore complex” explains his cheating. What an ugly misogynist skein to untangle.
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Dear Chump Lady,
Do you have any articles or advice on how to recover from an ex-partner that had the “Madonna whore complex”?
I keep seeing so much online about the actual person with this, but nothing regarding how a survivor / the person on receiving end can heal.
My ex-partner (6 years later and have 3 children) treated me extremely coldly and to be honest was a bully our whole relationship maybe the first 4 or 5 months were ok, but then he switched off, blamed me and basically ignored me for up to 1.5 years at a time.
It’s all come out now he had being using prostitution/ sex workers instead of having a relationship with me (I’m surprised we even conceived our children to be honest!) and it’s my fault because he can’t have a full relationship with me as he sees me only as a mother / career as I’ve carried the children!
My main upset is why the lies?
To have told the truth would have meant I could have taken control and left a lot sooner and started again. I’m mid 30s now and feel so upset I’ve wasted my 30s, a time you are meant to be enjoying your life. I feel like it’s wasted what should have been the best days of my young children’s life’s and also my chance at a whole relationship with someone. I’ve been left financially vulnerable and in a lot more isolated position than I was before the relationship.
I’m so heartbroken and sick of wasting time wondering what I’ve done wrong, but as above there’s a lot I need to work through and just wanted to reach out if you have any material to support / info on healing from this.
Thanks,
Nic
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Dear Nic,
I’ve got lots of material on how to leave a cheater. And absolutely nothing on the load of nonsense that is the “Madonna whore complex.” Which apparently is this Freudian idea that men don’t find you sexy once you’ve had children. They like to screw “whores” but not mommy. Alas, loving, committed relationships don’t get their dick hard.
Madonnas, whores, and cheating douchebags?
Men with this complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (Madonna).
Wikipedia
I imagine you don’t find a lot of resources on this, Nic, BECAUSE IT IS A LOAD OF MISOGYNISTIC CLAPTRAP.
“Where such men love they have no desire, and where they desire they cannot love.”
Sigmund Freud, 1912
First off, this whole “I can’t fuck you, Madonna, because I respect you so much,” is BULLSHIT. People who are deliberately sexually withholding are either a) punishing you, or b) getting it somewhere else, or c) both.
Respect has nothing to do with it. But it is beautiful blameshifting jujitsu (DARVO) to tell you they’re abusing you because of the great esteem they have for you. Hey, he worships you! How can you object?
He saves all his devaluing for prostitutes! You know, people he buys by the hour and who have no needs (well, none that he need concern himself with).
He is devaluing you both.
People who need to degrade someone to get their dicks hard DO NOT LOVE. They aren’t safe partners. Freud, what is wrong with you?
Have we dispatched with this Madonna-whore-made-me-cheat nonsense? Now to the rest of your letter.
it’s my fault because he can’t have a full relationship with me as he sees me only as a mother / career as I’ve carried the children!
Who told you this? Mr. Dip-a-Wick? Or his barmy therapist? He can’t have a full relationship with you, because he is INCAPABLE OF A FULL RELATIONSHIP. That isn’t your fault!
He’s taken one of the most beautiful things about you — your childbirth, the gift of three children — and weaponized it as the reason he must abuse and neglect you. Fuck him very much.
Healthy people don’t have double lives.
My main upset is why the lies?
To use you. Stop blaming yourself and try to see things from the dark side — why didn’t he tell you about his (cough) “complex”? Because Madonna whore whatever excuses his cheating. A thin veneer to justify his entitlement — to fuck around for years and have a family at home waiting for him. He had to lie to you to maintain that status. Until such a time as he was discovered, or decided to discard you.
Who does this? Freaks, sociopaths, Dark Triad personality disorders.
It’s better on the other side.
I feel like it’s wasted what should have been the best days of my young children’s life’s and also my chance at a whole relationship with someone.
Definitely explore why you invested so deeply in someone who did not reciprocate your love, who treated you so shabbily. We only control ourselves and what we accept. That’s not blaming you — we’re all chumps here. I’m saying REFRAME this. You’re free of an abuser. YAY.
You have your children. That’s not a waste. And if you learn from this shitty experience, that’s not a waste either. The only waste is that freak you bred with. You’re still in your 30s! You have your whole life to have a healthy relationship — with yourself, with loved ones, and romantically.
Heal up, and don’t lose hope. Also, please, if you haven’t already — a full STD panel of tests.
Sigmund Freud: “You cheated on your wife because you secretly want to have sex with your mother and kill your father. Here’s a prescription for cocaine. That’ll be $100.”
Interesting bit of geekery… While working for an eco-health publication, I did a deep dive researching the origins of the concept of “mass hysteria” going back to Freud and the founder of neurology, Jean-Martin Charcot. This was after the media loudly attributed several outbreaks of tics and seizures among students of high schools which had leased land to fracking operations to “mass hysteria/conversion.” Oh really? Not the measurable levels of fracking chemicals in municipal water that were leaking into the environments around these schools and which are known in clinical literature to cause tics and seizures but some throwback Freudian concept?? Never mind the parent companies of these fracking operations and chemical manufacturers were major sponsors of the media companies promoting the Freudian nonsense and teaching hospitals from which the quoted medical “experts” were drawn…
What I found is that, though both Freud and Charcot made a few undeniable contributions, it turned out that much of the modern conception of mass somatoform/conversion disorder arose from a combination of ignorance, cowardice and outright medical whoring (speaking of Madonna-whore… bit of Freudian projection on Freud’s part?). Freud, who originally attributed individual cases of hysteria to the potential psychological legacy of child sexual abuse, retracted this view under pressure from peers and replaced it with the idea that infants “desire” their parents. The latter view apparently pleased his peers and Freud managed to guard his status and keep paying for his coke. But he also missed the hint that several of his early hysteria patients were women who’d personally nursed their syphilitic fathers (as was apparently expected of daughters) and were likely heavily exposed to the mercury salts typically used to treat the disease and many other conditions at the time. Then Charcot, while he did admit that heavy metal exposure was likely behind more convulsive symptoms in some cases of supposed hysteria, whored himself to railway companies which were beset by countless injury lawsuits in the days before things like whiplash and other injuries related to then-new high speed travel accidents were understood. Charcot was paid to publish medical opinions casting these injuries as “imaginary” and even “psychologically contagious.”
Though maybe there’s evidence that things like “folie a deux” and other types of shared psychosis can exist, the corrupt origins of the concept of mass hysteria seem to make it endlessly adaptable to misuse for the purposes of victim-blaming and cover up.
One of the prostitutes – and not a psychologist- likely told him he has a Madonna-Whore complex when he said he can’t get his freak on with his wife.
Along with reading Chump Lady’s book, also read, Lundy Bancroft’s book ‘Why does he do that’. Lundy is a counsellor that works with men. He has seen & heard it all…and all the excuses for treating partners badly all comes down to this: manipulation, entitlement & justification. Your ex doesn’t adult-up & take ownership of his issues & he certainly doesn’t take care of his wife & family like the precious people that you are. He’s a failure & a POS when it comes right down to it. There’s your answer.
I’ve read Bancroft’s book, and I could have sworn he wrote a whole chapter solely on my ex! The tips for how to handle interactions with the ex was a godsend in the lead up to the divorce.
Our mutual therapist brought this up one time after my ex left, but who knows. He seemed interested in having kids and was thrilled with them at times, and other times not. After they became teens, he was indifferent and also complained during separation that I had paid them too much attention. I discussed that with the therapist who said that BOTH parents need to up their couple’s game after you have kids. That made sense. It was not 100% my responsibility AT ALL. But his overall approach was that I was responsible for his happiness in life, and since I failed at that, I was responsible for the divorce.
My ex’s taste in women was definitely more on the whore side though while he had been raised to look for a life partner and potential mother of his children. Well, now he has what he wanted all along, according to reports.
When I met FW he said I was his type: tall, curvy, fair. Now, though, his type is very young (almost 30 years younger than him), tatted up, Latina girls/women who boldly advertise their wares. He also paid for all his strange. So I fit the life partner mold but not the ongoing s3x buddy one once I aged out (about 30) of his preferred demographic.
Ironically, the woman he is with now is older than him, but reportedly dresses and acts like a model.
Nope, not me. I’m just ol’ ordinary, Elsie.
Re “both parents need to step up”: I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve reflected on my marriage with some regret about my own failings (along the lines of “I should have organized more outings for just the two of us, without the kids”) only to remember that there were, in fact, two people in the marriage and anything I failed to do my wife – as a competent adult human – could have, but didn’t, done herself. A consistent theme here is chumps who are blamed for “only” doing 90% of the work, leaving 10% undone because the cheater is doing exactly 0%.
Thank you for posting this IG, it’s exactly what I needed to hear today.
A close friend of mine just divorced a supposedly recovered Mormon who pretended to be a modern feminist social justice warrior. I had to admit the guy put up quite an elaborate front, even teaching self defense to women in his spare time. But when the dust settled, it was clear that he’d married my friend because he wanted tall, intelligent, good looking kids but his sexual template ran more in the direction of shockingly dumb and dumpy. She was basically chosen as an elegant brood cow in a sort of eugenics operation.
A bit like why the Royal family chose Diana for Charlie Boy when he much prefers a munter who’s married to someone else?
Lol, exactly. It was actually extraordinary. Even the youngish nanny he bonked looked a bit like Gonzo from the Muppets. Meanwhile he married someone who was not only on the cover of Italian Vogue in her teens, she’s also smart, sensitive, funny as hell, health-conscious, hard worker, great mom, has genuine integrity, excellent taste, keenly observant, loyal friend, raises tons of money for pediatric cancer, etc. Anyway, typical cheating situation if you ask me. The only way to make sense of it is the old Madonna-whore dichotomy. Furthermore, it seems like the rule that when a smart person gets conned, the perp tends to be extra-mega-sociopathic.
Oh yes, the sort of pathology than can even con the most experienced , skilled psychiatrists? They are about!
It still puzzles me how the likes of Charlie and your friend’s X prefer munters to their beautiful wives though. There was a French film out years ago called “Trope Belle Pour Toi” ( Too Beautiful for You) about a husband married to a stunner but carrying on with an ugly bird! I’ll have to watch it to get some insights into that particular mind warp!
Wow, I was about to mention that film but thought twice because I never actually saw the whole thing because it’s currently not available for streaming. Just in case the wife character was depicted as an ice queen, I didn’t want to compare my friend to that because it wasn’t true of her at all. And the many dowdy APs in my friend’s situation were crass rough trade, not “warm and earthy” which I’m guessing was the AP trope in the Depardieu film.
I was also confused by how ugly and unhealthy the AP was in my own situation. It came as a surprise. When I first began to suspect FW was cheating, I imagined he was bonking someone more wonderful attractive. When it turned out to be a dumpy, acne-scarred idiot, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. But I started to realize that the incredibly intense, unrealistic modern focus on appearance in the media and online pornography has probably created another gender power imbalance that benefits the patriarchy in the same way that dire poverty did in feudal days when lords and gentry could fuck the starving peasantry at whim. Ergo the “fugly” women can be counted on to enthusiastically grovel, flatter, fluff and reenact every physically painful, unfulfilling sex act depicted in violent streaming porn which more conventionally attractive women might eschew.
Not that men are the only ones who cheat and betray but I have a growing feeling that this gender power imbalance also influences how she-cheaters behave. The usual story is that she-FWs tend to reject stable “good providers” and loyal partners for power-abusing or irresponsible, knuckle dragging Java men APs. It all seems to play into the same stereotypical gender power divisions even if the dynamics appear to be different on the surface.
Tim Ballard?
Oh, sounds like my ex FW, HE wanted to have children, then he wanted me to raise them basically by myself, then he was mad at me about it. He also had massive mommy issues though, so I think it was turning me into “mean mommy” rather than Madonna… if only they worshipped us so, lol.
Sigh, narcissists… they can’t handle it if everything doesn’t revolve around them, and meanwhile we’re living on crumbs and giving until there’s nothing left. I don’t have the patience to understand it further, and the best prescription I’ve found is “boy, bye.”
I felt like his mum near the end too, and in the last few months, I had definitely been cast in the role of “mean, controlling mum”, as one of the “reasons” he gave me for his crap was “you kept ringing me!” !?
I only rang him because he wouldn’t be back from work hours after he should have been, and, because of the coke he wasn’t always getting much sleep and seeing as he was working on the railway AND was driving the works van all over the country- Kerry, Dublin etc., I would be worried he’d had an accident and then , to make it worse, he’d lie and say he WAS on his way home, but was stuck in traffic or some such BS , when he knew he’d no intention of coming home fore hours because he was going on a session and was hoping for a sordid encounter with a Snapchat Slapper!
So, I was put in that role without my knowledge nor consent and when I copped on, I was RAGING!
p.s. I despise Freud ever since I learnt he betrayed his patients who’d suffered CSA by backtracking and coming up with his Oedipus/Electra Complex theories, and I am always wary of anyone who likes him and his twisted theories!
I was also mean Mommy, except when I was pregnant. Then I was sexually ignored.
This 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻
Hoes like other hoes, but they sure don’t like it when the ho they’ve chosen inevitably does what hoes do and cheats on them. Your ex ho has that in his future, if he hasn’t had it already.
Exactly. I’ve been divorced for more than a few years at this point. A relative of his called me on the sly about my ex because they were concerned about how much he was spending on her. My ex also has a significant history of mental health issues including a suicide attempt and many threats, some more veiled than others. So I guess the relative thought I had some wisdom for preventing the inevitable train wreck.
I’m sorry, not my committee at this point. We haven’t even lived in the same state for over six years, much less been in contact over anything but legal stuff. I have hoped for years that he would deal with his issues, but he’s not in my sphere of influence anymore, NOT AT ALL.
I guess it comes down to this – can a person be enough of a grown-up to accept that the relationship needs to evolve when the children come along, or can’t they?
If they are rigid about being the center of attention, nope.
A friend once shared a blog post written by a man outlining that if your SAHM wife is not mostly enjoying the toddler years, you need to evaluate yourself and determine with your wife what is needed to get through those years with some semblance of partnership and joy.
Sigh. In my dreams. He was a workaholic, so I was largely a single parent during those years, even on the weekends.I loved being a mom, but it was like he abandoned me then.
Nic, even if he did have such a complex, how on earth could that be your fault? I assume he wanted the children too. Even if he didn’t, he had a hand in creating them. If he wanted to keep you as a “whore” figure he would have wrapped his damn dick so you wouldn’t get pregnant. So it’s his fault you’re a “madonna” figure. He obviously wanted it that way. So he’s a hypocrite as well as a deviant sicko. Who cares what he thinks his “complex” is. Personally, I think he has an adequacy complex. He thinks he’s acceptable as a human being, but he’s no more evolved than something that slithered out of primordial swamp a zillion years ago. That his complex.
Yours is that you think you are responsible for his behavior. Work on that.
So forget about that creepy whoremonger’s issues and focus on the great life you are going to have without his abuse. It gets better. Much better. You’re still young and you have plenty of time to build a new life. Don’t rush into any new relationships, though. Give yourself time to recover and fix your picker.
To answer your question about healing, it does not matter why the abuser abuses because the way you heal from abuse is the same, which is whatever it is that works best for you. Find that out. Whatever helps you to accept and find peace with your life as it is now, that’s what you do. It’s trial and error, but books about recovering from domestic abuse will give you guidelines. The important thing is to stick with it and never go back to being anybody’s scapegoat for their disgusting personal conduct.
I think the Madonna-whore thing can be real issue among those from fundamentally religious or patriarchal backgrounds, though I’ve never heard it used as a psychobbable alibi, only as a way to expose someone’s absurd and twisted fuckedupedness. My dad was very funny in his bitterness and would viciously mock the mentality when he described how his single teen mother was castigated by Irish Catholic culture which forced her to put him in an orphanage for the first four years of his life until she could reinvent herself as a “widow.” It’s one of the reasons my father became a radical feminist and could never tolerate organized religion or anything Irish. I used to tease him about it, calling him up every year to wish him a happy St. Patrick’s Day just to hear him bellow, “Tell the Pope I’m homosexual!” Then I’d remind him that the most Irish trait of all is hating Irish culture (James Joyce, etc.). But it really all stemmed from the trauma of growing up seeing women abused which he knew wasn’t isolated to Irish culture. Long before primatologist Richard Wrangham theorized that women’s equality would reduce war, my dad, a disabled veteran, genuinely believed this was the case.
Thankfully, my dad’s understanding of the Madonna-whore dichotomy gave me lifelong resistance to any fragments of it in modern culture. For instance, when I worked in a narc-ridden, top down industry, not so subtle versions of the “whore” spin were used to put fatwas on women who stood up to harassment and sexism. Sort of like witch-dunking in which only those who drown are viewed as innocent, women who fought back were ironically viewed as “leathery bitches” (aka, whores) therefore deserving of whatever they got. So, you know, the only way to be a “good victim” is to stay silent and take it and preferably die in the process. And how dumb is that? It was so intense that if I hadn’t been raised to scoff at the attitude I would have been crushed and would never have stood up for myself. But I always saw people who conveyed those views as hilarious wormy weirdos with creepy small dick energy whether they were projecting “purity” onto me or the “whore” stereotype.
I think in FW’s case his Madonna-whore issues were like a latent virus from his parents’ heavily patriarchal Catholic roots. He managed to be very covert about it for most of the marriage but the whole sordid mentality cropped up full force and came out of remission when he started drinking and fucking around. Recognizing this helped me get my sense of humor back, get my fight on and strategize successfully. It was a very accurate operating theory. But I never once saw FW as a sad sausage “victim” of his misogynist upbringing, more like a dangerous carrier of a deadly and stupid disease.
Just a side note about the seeming contradiction of rejecting Madonna-whore mentality while also being critical of those who blow the patriarchy. It’s only a contradiction if one accepts the completely reverso patriarchal conception of “whore”– which is any independent woman who doesn’t wholeheartedly grovel for amnesty from the patriarchy while also throwing innocent people under the bus. But, to me, the only thing shameful is internalizing that system and acting as a proxy to it. By that token, a third world single mother forced into sex work to feed her kids wouldn’t be a “whore” if she didn’t internalize the view and didn’t end up acting as procurer or pimp while FWs, witting APs and anyone else who internalizes inequality and weaponizes sex are all big flaming ho bags to me.
” witting APs and anyone else who internalizes inequality and weaponizes sex are all big flaming ho bags to me.”
Agreed. No excuses.
I always liked the sentiments of the Stockard Channing solo from Grease that kind of breaks down the issue of “slut shaming.”
There are worse things I could do
Than go with a boy or two
Even though the neighborhood
Thinks I’m trashy and no good
I suppose it could be true
But there are worse things I could do
…I could hurt someone like me
Out of spite or jealousy
I don’t steal and I don’t lie
But I can feel and I can cry
A fact I’ll bet you never knew…
Even if I don’t partake, I honestly don’t care what people choose to do sexually as long as they don’t victimize others in the process. To me, sex isn’t “shameful” or “dirty” until cruelty or robbing of consent come into the equation.
I’m 1000% of the same mindset. I have a quirky life of my own, in that sense. Unfortunately, with most of the situations we discuss here, the subjects aren’t interested unless they ARE victimizing someone else. Like the Duper’s Delight of the AP and FW. It’s fun because they can victimize and demonize the chump – hurting someone while justifying it. We don’t get to talk about fully consensual dynamics here very often, except when talking about how they are out there and chumps can have them with decent people.
Nic,
If you’re sick of wasting time wondering what you’ve done wrong, then stop today. Decide to believe you did nothing that would have justified being abused by him. His choices are all his. He abuses because he wants to. That’s who he is, and that’s all you need to know. Now, what are you going to do? Divorce, build a whole new life? That’s worthy of a lot of thought and effort. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time asking why you didn’t leave sooner. You had 3 kids in 6 years. You were vulnerable, hormonal, trying to survive, thinking the best of people. If you ignored red flags in the beginning, learn from it and try not to do so going forward. Be kind to yourself – you didn’t know people like him existed.
Hear, hear MC99, very well said!
This,Nic! With bells on!
No, he didn’t abuse you because he’s got a Madonna-Whore complex. He abused you because he’s an abuser who hates women.
The target doesn’t matter. Madonnas don’t get treated any better than the whores. It’s a lie of patriarchy that has women pick me dancing for men’s approval – that you need to EARN his approval and respect, and if he treats you poorly, well, you obviously weren’t good enough. Dress piously or men will harass you. Jump through hoops or he’ll cheat on you. We’ve lived with this insidious lie ever since the Bible blamed Eve for tempting Adam and causing the Fall.
It’s bullshit. We don’t control men’s behavior. We can’t control anyone but ourselves. People behave how they want to behave. And misogynists will always treat women like shit, no matter who the woman is.
The problem is he’s entitled and he hates women. Yes, all women. Don’t waste your time looking for a deeper answer because there isn’t one. You’re seeking one right now because on some level you’re still convinced you were the problem and that you somehow caused him to abuse you. Don’t fall for it.
The irony is, that theologically, ADAM carries the most blame for the Fall, not Eve. People just think that she carries the sole blame but that’s not the case at all! I think it’s been twisted because wrong-doers nearly always try to blame someone or something else and so Adam, when caught , did the classic blame-shift!
I always think of him like a big child “It weren’t me God, it was ‘er!” pointing at Eve, hoping he’d be let off and she’d be the only one in trouble with the Big Man!
John Venables and Robert Thompson, the two who murdered 3 year old Jamie Bulger when they were 10 year olds, were reported by the police officers who interviewed them to have both tried to put all the blame on the other! Two boys!
I can’t remember anything that even HINTS that Eve tried to put all or even most of the blame on Adam. She didn’t play that game. I wonder if it’s a character flaw that is more prelavent in males, although not exclusive to them?
Yes, the misogyny is what Lundy Bancroft really centered his work around. A man who truly values women and values a marriage to a woman is not going to wrack up the list of misdeeds we discuss here. Their character values honesty and integrity, and that’s that.
My attorney pointed out that if a reasonable, fair person wanted a divorce so they could “play the field,” they would handle divorce in a reasonable, fair way. He said that he had seen that in a handful of times, but more often than not, cheaters are awful in divorce because they are awful people.
I’m under no illusions that my ex is going to treat his current love interest any better than me, long-term. Everywhere they go, they are…
All of this. But also, there’s something wrong with adults who want to “play the field”, especially as they get older, and people who are reasonably well adjusted will also find it strange.
Normal people are devastated when they need to end a marriage even for good reasons and aren’t eager to go sleep with strangers.
I agree. Makes no sense.
My attorney celebrated his 40th anniversary during the divorce process. His wife was the firm’s administrator. I only met her a handful of times because she was also looking out for my attorney’s dad, who was in his mid-90’s. Just quality people, all around. The associate who did some of my paperwork and then took my closeout to another firm spoke very, very highly of them both. The older one retired and closed the firm the day after my divorce was final, just how it worked out.
So he commented one time about how never could get people who “tossed” a spouse when they were in their sixties with decades together. Even with over four decades in family law, he didn’t grasp it. At the very least, they could be nice about it. But no, that very rarely happened anyway.
No, I didn’t get it either. I thought we were going to enjoy our golden years that we had saved for. I had to toughen up during the divorce because I am just not a fighter by nature, and I had to be there. My attorney joked at signing, “Once closeout is done, you can go back to being ‘nice Elsie.'”
Something like that although I’m much better at boundaries and sticking up for myself now.
The ex became a late life drug addict. We had started dating at 18, married at 23, I filed at 60- he had a young howorker too. I remember telling my attorney, close to the end of divorce, that FW needed rehab. He said “You are nice person, he’s a grown man and that’s not going to happen”. He was right, it didn’t and hasn’t …. We had been together for decades, how does one decide to cross those lines? I don’t get it. At least I’m free of that mess.
Exactly Cam. Nailed it.
Nic is still too vulnerable to get to the “trust he sucks” understanding and the Madonna-Whore nonsense offers her some sort of answer to “why?”
The asking of “why” is the deadliest trap of all. I know it kept me stuck for a long time. I finally discovered there is no end to the reasoning that you can come up with for another person’s actions in the bargaining stage of grief.
Focus on the actions and don’t interpret. That removes any sort of confusion.
We all live and love under some kind of patriarchal coding. How we parse that is simply by watching what others do around us in the tiny moments and over a longer period of time.
In my view, anyone who purchases flesh for sexual purposes is deviant and no one safe to be in any sort of relationship with. It’s a secret sexual basement. There is no excusing it. I don’t care if some sex workers exist who are all “empowered” the oldest profession in the world only began because of power imbalances and survival. And now human trafficking is a bigger industry of pure misery of sexual slavery than anything else and growing in crazy percentages by the day. See the film “Sounds of Freedom” if you really want to know what it’s about.
Any person on the demand side of this equation is a knowing participant. That makes them someone to get far away from and not someone whose motivations we should ponder.
The house is on fire Nic. Only one option now: escape for you and your children.
Well said. The same applies to porn slobs. There’s trafficking and abuse in that, too, leading to shocking suicide and overdose rates for women in porn. That makes the user an aider and abbetor to rape, physical abuse and, if not outright murder, at least manslaughter, IMO. Same with prostitution.
It means there’s almost no men who are safe, because the stats say almost all of them use porn or have used it.
This is a big part why I do not date and do not intend to. The other part is that I like the freedom I have now.
And I have read that a large proportion of women in porn, and all the sex industry, are victims of Child Sexual Abuse. I say victims rather than survivors because the damage done to them as little girls is still continuing to be done to them. They haven’t a chance of beginning to heal whilst they’re in the sex industry.
Personally, I regard porn as a curse, and would love to see it criminalised totally. It reduces human beings to mere objects, especially the female ones, and worst of all, some children! The reduction of a human person to a mere thing IS a crime IMO , whatever form it takes!
I really do believe p0rn is one of the biggest contributors to/indicators of a likely cheater. FW told me that vanilla s3x couldn’t compare anymore to the kinks he’d developed from his obsessive p0rn habit. I discovered the habit shortly after we got married (he’d told me he used it before we met because he had never had a girlfriend before but stopped when we got together). We went through couples therapy and he swore he wouldn’t use it anymore. He just got better at hiding it.
He had ED from a pretty early point in our relationship – by our late 20s he had a ‘maintenance’ problem. He never admitted where it came from but I think most of us know the correlation between ED and p0rn abuse. After DDay he told me that he wanted to do the things he saw in p0rn but knew I’d never go for them so he gave himself permission to find women online who would.
If I had to guess I’d say it was less ‘wanted to do’ and more ‘had to do’ because it became a compulsion. Enough that he had a secret storage locker full of equipment that I could never bring myself to visit once I discovered its existence. I really don’t want to know what he’s into. Based on the fact that all of his APs were much younger and most were paid, I’m guessing he craves that power imbalance and he probably demeans/abuses them. Like I said, I don’t really want to know.
Oh Lord, I know what you mean about not wanting to know any more than you’ve already found out1 They’ve lied through their teeth and cheated. That’s enough!
My STBXH was looking at porn on my laptop when we first got the internet. When I found out, I downloaded a filtering software, forgotten the name of it, that you had to put in the password to look at porn and other sites you could add from a list. That put a stop to his perving straight away. He never mentioned it again and neither did I but I now realise it was a red flag, as basically, perving and self-abusing over photos and videos of other women is a form of cheating! Oh and he had a bit of ED too, which I was so understanding and reassuring about! If I’d known it was due to his love of porn, it’d have been a different story, I can tell you! Oh if only I knew then what I know now !!
Oh and last year, he got a smartphone for the first time, so it’s a fair bet he was looking at porn on that, the dirty devil!
LOL. If you REALLY want to scare a guy off who is interested in you, ask when he last used porn. My sample size is small, but virtually all said, “In the last month.”
Then they got a rant from me, and that ended that.
Ha! — so strange that I just entered a comment above about the Sounds of Freedom guy, Tim Ballard. Sorry to tell you that he himself is an abuser of the first order. We’re talking A-level creep.
What is the source of those allegations though? Paedophiles, and all sex offenders, are highly narcissistic. Narcs launch smear campaigns against those who expose them, as we know. They play the victim, they DARVO and they attempt character assassinations on anyone who stands up to them.
I’m not saying Ballard is innocent. I don’t know. But unless there’s concrete evidence from an impartial source, I’d be suspending judgement on the man. Always consider the source of such allegations, and always ask “Qui bono?” “Who benefits?”. Hollywood and the corridors of power are full of those with disordered characters and those high in Cluster BU traits. Smearing those who expose them or attempt to hold them to account would be just what they would do, wouldn’t it?
I meant Cluster B traits, not “BU”. Don’t know why I typed that!
I was gonna say, weren’t people complaining it was a QAnon movie? I didn’t see it but heard terrible things when it came out.
Still agree with Samsara’s point though that sex trafficking is evil.
Regardless of the controversy of the film, and I’m aware of it, the story itself and the stats around human trafficking and the so-called sex trade don’t lie. They are literally the tip of the iceberg. Fastest growing organised crime category worldwide. Anyone who has a partner who is partaking of this industry in any way needs to get away from them. No interpretation necessary.
Yes, agreed. Just want to make sure y’all knew about the guy, because … abusers are fakers, as we know.
You’re preaching to the choir with regards to prostitution.
Wasn’t so much preaching as alerting the letter writer Nic that the focus should not be on the Madonna-Whore assigned roles, it’s on her abuser and on his prostitution use.
I guess I hoped the DARVO aspect of the labeling could be examined. Put the focus where it should be….
Friends raved about that movie, and something seemed off to me. I didn’t go.
Yes, all the dirt and more has come out.
Not to mention that I heard an interview with an FBI agent who specializes in s3x trafficking (I wish I could remember where!) and he said that among its many flaws was that the movie focused disproportionately on young children. He said that was sensationalist and dangerous because it’s more often young teens–those kicked out by their families because of their sexuality, those with mental illnesses, runaways, etc. He said the biggest demographic who is trafficked are the most vulnerable subset of this vulnerable group: the homeless.
I didn’t see the movie myself (because of the QAnon connection and creepy Jim Caviezel) but the agent said that it just wasn’t accurate and that painting a false image of what the problem is probably will cause more harm than good in that money will be given to combat the prevention of trafficking of young children who are rarely trafficked and nothing given to help older kids/teens who need the most assistance.
Exactly. One of the people I know locally who is involved with combatting sex traffic has said the same. If you want to help or donate, pick a group that is helping kids mostly 10-20 or so, and folks that truly know what they are doing.
It’s so disingenuous how supporters of sex work think its status as the world’s oldest profession somehow legitimizes it.
If it’s been around forever and it’s so empowering, why aren’t women empowered yet? Why are we still the minority in business and politics in every country on earth? Why are we so poor compared to men? Why do we still suffer astronomical rates of domestic violence everywhere?
I ask this facetiously, I already know the answers.
WHY is a moot point.
It’s an integrity issue, a character issue. I don’t care why.
When you make an agreement with someone to be monogamous, or any other kind of agreement, either you keep it or be up front and inform the other party that you are no longer willing to keep it.
But that would harsh the buzz of the secret sexual double life, which is the point.
It’s wrong to deceive and defraud someone and hold them hostage by pretending to keep an agreement you made while breaking it behind their back.
Sex and intimacy are not the same thing. There is an invisible chasm preventing intimacy between someone who is deceiving a committed partner and ALL the people they are involved with. Yes, including affair accomplices. Lying prevents intimacy, aka “INTO-ME-SEE”.
This reminds me of the idiotic debate about whether monogamy is natural, often trotted out to defend secret sexual double
lives, as if no one understands what the word “monogamy” means and entered into the agreement by mistake.
FW tried to pull the ‘monogamy isn’t natural — at least for him’ crap on DDay. I wasn’t having it.
“It’s wrong to deceive and defraud someone and hold them hostage by pretending to keep an agreement you made while breaking it behind their back.” 💯
THIS.
Chumps waste way too much time trying to understand shitty people. They suck. The reasons why don’t matter, they’re just excuses, like all the other excuses they make for why their lives are dumpster fires.
“like all the other excuses they make for why their lives are dumpster fires.”
And most times it will always be someone else’s fault, whether it is infidelity, robbing a store, beating a spouse, embezzlement.
It is one reason why I don’t really like the FOO blame shift. Lots of folks have rough childhoods and still behave like decent human beings.
I don’t hear fear of intimacy often discussed here as a secondary gain of secret sexual double lives I’ve had enough therapy long enough to know that in any relationships where there are secrets, lies, and deception there is also distance, and lots of it.
Yes! Once I’d copped on to what FW was doing, and that he was a devious, deceitful , treacherous person, I felt the distance, and that I was living with a stranger, a Changeling who was trying to mimic my husband but not quite pulling it off and whom I couldn’t stand!
With time to reflect, I have come to realise he always had a bit of loose relationship with the truth and that I never really, truly knew him, nor he me, at least not until that last fortnight before I kicked him out! Even then, it took him coming back for a ( thankfully failed) hoover for me to really get it!
I would often think about how I could never have a really deep conversation with him and then feel bad about it, and push the thought away. But yes, he was emotionally distant unless he was being what Dr. George Simon calls “ardent”, and that was for his own ends, not really for me, I realise now!
Funnily enough, one of his sisters told me that “FW is distant!” years ago. Another big red flag I didn’t cop to until too late!
That’s because FWs camouflage dependency so they can’t be intimate.
Control and power are more important to FWs than vulnerability and therefore intimacy. They do not trust (because they’re untrustworthy) so they can’t / don’t trust others.
There is no building a proper intimate life with a FW.
I’ve always seen and had the Madonna-Whore complex explained differently, so here’s my take: misogynists see women who have had sex as filthy whores, deserving of no respect, and women who aren’t sexual (at least, to them) as unobtainable Madonnas, perfect virgins. It’s an either/or mindset. And this is BAD, something you can’t really work with in a relationship.
Just like here.
You can’t FIX this, if this is the real issue (could just be an excuse). What it sounds like to me is he’s spent so much time obsessing over the clean sexual ideal that he can’t comprehend an actual partner. One that does gross, unsexy things, like bleed and work and have needs. And has babies, meaning there’s competition for attention. There’s nothing to work with there.
If you NEED skein untangling, the only time I have seen similar mindsets is with extreme misogynists on image boards – men who have anime waifus because they hate real women for… being real humans. Bodily functions, having their own thoughts, having a sexual history, you name it. And for imagined reasons, like the idea that women can’t hold virtues like loyalty. But this is still a stretch. The idea that straight men don’t like women if they have kids… I mean, have you ever heard of a MILF?
Screw him. Screw his complexes. They have nothing to do with you, if they exist. Here in reality, people love their living, breathing partners. Get therapy for the trauma. Gain a life. You got this.
I should note: this does not mean I believe people cannot change. But as I think I’ve mentioned before, cheaters can’t change while in a relationship with a chump. They’ve already created an abusive dynamic, broken the most basic of trust, and that can’t be fixed.
Yeah Madonna-whore complex is BS. My eX enjoyed his secret double life of prostitutes AND he wanted me too…. to perform like a porn star/ prostitute and accept his demanding/ guilt-tripping/objectifying sexual coercion. So does he have whore-whore complex (in his mind) then? No, he’s simply an entitled user and abuser. And clearly a misogynist. He respected neither the call girls, nor his wife.
Abuseosexuals is what they are.
Probably already been said, but the process – regardless of the side a FW choses to view their partner/women as – involves objectification: an ability to see someone as a multi-faceted individual with many sides who has their own strengths and weaknesses. Instead they are viewed through the filter of a FW’s own needs, values and judgements. Pretty narcissistic and indicative of the black/white thinking that causes a FW to project their own conscious or unconscious motives onto the chump and the process of idealisation, where the objected is first pedestalled and can do no wrong, then devalued when proven to only be human and fall outside the script that the FW sets for them in terms of fulfilling their needs and the way that the chump makes them feel (while the FW takes no responsibility or agency or their emotional life and health).
This sight is priceless and I love Tracy and Patreon!!
Let me say that after 2 full blown marriages to 2 full blown cheaters, what you are hearing are JUST EXCUSES to cheat and not worth dissecting. You are dissecting crap and the deeper you dig, the more it stinks. But ok, do what you think for now and then do what works. I had to look at my descent into Marital Hell and my participation in my take down. First and foremost, I allowed both husbands to devalue me and tell me I was nothing. I believed them…this was my part. Believing lies about me and my worth. Who am I without my man? NOTHING!! I cannot care for my babies without you and your support, I.need you!! Dependency makes abusers stronger. These are not men they are sick animals. It was never ever me….. but for MY PART, I believed I could not live without him. But i could and I did once I plugged my ears and tied myself to the mast of spiritual strength that I had worth from God. Period.
These Madonna men are abusers and it is sad to tie your life to them and now these babies. However, I did have several warnings before a second pregnancy, like horrible meaness and name calling and insults and ignoring me. I still had another baby with this animal because I could not BELIEVE this formally my childhood sweetheart could turn on me. But he did. That second pregnancy and staying too long x2, is on me. Something I did.actually control that part yet I did not leave.
My second baby is 35 and though she prefers her cheater dad to me has still given me 3 grandchildren and much love to make up for any poor decisions I have made. I think us chumps get warnings ⚠️ but we are not ready.
Forget all the names of why we are abused and fix what you can. You lost a sperm donor ok? Many Woman would pay hundreds of thousands for one baby and you are rocking 3!!! Fix what you can and get out. You are young!!! You will be fine in time..stay mighty!! I’m rooting for your.new life and saying a prayer too!!
Freud was just a drug addict who liked to talk about his dick. I honestly wonder why he’s still in textbooks. I recently took a psych class (as a 51-year-old) and was just GOBSMACKED reading through his stuff. Just another successful Dark Triad. I’m pretty sure FW is dark triad and it explains how he has been successful in his career- lots of lies and using people got him where he is today.
I experienced similar internal turmoil when presented with the husband/dickhead dichotomy.
Close your eyes and think of the Queen usually did the trick.