Leave an Abuser, Be a Role Model for the Next Generation
I was thinking this morning about what it means for future generations when you leave an abuser. How many of you are there from this 13-year-old blog? Hundreds of thousands? You’re all role models.
Because when you leave an abuser, you set an example.
I’m not saying you’re on a lecture circuit, or emotionally vomiting on strangers, telling them about your abhorrent ex. But you are living in the world as an escapee, a survivor, and a success story. Yes, even if it’s early days and you don’t feel that way right now. You’re modeling to someone that it’s possible.
And the more people out there who escape cheaters and reinvent their lives, the more normal it becomes to not tolerate abuse. Because now we have a quorum. This shit isn’t acceptable. Look at all the people not accepting it! And the story gets passed down. My great-aunt Hazel left a fuckwit and moved to Montana and started a goat dairy….
Think of all the people you have influenced with your story. Think of what your kids are going to say about you, the show-up parent and what you were up against. Imagine all the people you’ve tangentially known who are inspired by your example. They’re on this blog, in the comments, on social media. And that’s just this little universe. You’ve got a whole life outside this place.
Now imagine a world where you can’t escape.
This morning I read this story in the New York Times about an “honor killing” in Pakistan of a 14-year old girl. (Gift link to article above.) Her father and uncle shot her because she made “immodest” videos on TikTok. The teenager grew up in New York and on a family visit to Pakistan, they murdered her. The men were arrested.
The Times reports:
Hira’s death is part of a deeply ingrained pattern of violence against women in Pakistan and within its diaspora, rights advocates said, an ancient problem that has taken on dangerous new dimensions with the rise of social media.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights group, recorded 588 so-called honor killings in Pakistan in 2024, up from 490 in 2023 and nearly matching the 590 reported in 2022.
Women often become targets by refusing forced marriages, seeking divorce or separation, being in relationships deemed inappropriate by families, or engaging in other actions seen as violating conservative values. In one case last year, a girl was killed by her brother for using a cellphone. In another, a young woman was fatally poisoned by her parents for dating.
Now, you might dismiss this horror as being particular to Pakistan, but misogyny is everywhere.
Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a New York-based nonprofit organization, said that in the United States, gender-based violence happened at higher rates within South Asian communities. Nearly half of South Asians in the United States report experiencing such violence at least once, according to surveys.
“This is not because our community is inherently more violent,” Ms. Mehra said, “but rather because we are enmeshed in intergenerational trauma — cycles of pain, silence and patriarchal control, shaped by histories of colonialism, displacement and migration.”
Intergenerational trauma hit me. Histories of abuse, histories of normalizing abuse. And how mighty you have to be to break that cycle.
They had to kill that child because she was an existential threat. Imagine if freedom of expression was normalized? All that repression creates a norm where there are no examples of people living different, freer lives, depriving FWs of their primacy.
The Friday Challenge is to share with CN who your example was living a freer, better, saner life.
TGIF!
My mother walked away from a cheating alcoholic when I was 9. I walked away from a cheating alcoholic at 66. She showed me you just put one foot out the door and keep going. My sister walked away from an alcoholic who she married at 55 after 18 years of abuse. We are both in therapy but no longer in those relationships and getting stronger and urging each other on everyday. We are free ……..
My aunt is my mentor. Her first husband broke her jaw and left her for dead in her bathtub. My grandpa found her and brought her home. Years later she married another man and then left him. I’m not entirely sure what happened in that marriage. My aunt is a strong lady loves tennis. She dated for years, would get engaged and eventually break it off because the men didn’t meet her standards. She has a full life with her friends and Family. She is my mentor.
My fw slept with prostitutes unprotected and gave me an sti. Worst and best day of my life. He told me, “you should thank me, now you can leave.” I was so angry when he said that but now I totally get it. Life is soooooo much better now.
Tennis was my separation sport. I’m not good at it but it definitely makes me happy. I started dating again and then I met my now husband who is amazing. If in the future god forbid something happens and life throws me another curve ball. I know that I will be okay on my own and life is so much better when you’re not living with an abuser.
My younger self, from back in the 1970s and even the early 1980s, has been an inspiration to me. After discovering my marriage had been a fraud for so many decades, learning a little about all the horrid women, all the places, all the years, I began to look back and rediscover who I was before I knew this fake person. I was an amazing person. That was a springboard to leaving all the stupidity behind. I clearly recall that once I registered for my 50th college (undergrad) reunion and made the reservations for the flights, hotel,etc, that I began to uncover a new feeling. A new sense of lightness. It was unmistakable. You may not have to look far for a good example.Perhaps in the mirror.
I had a friend in college who was 15 years older than me and had returned to school. She had been married to a wealthy business owner who had decided after 7 years of marriage to start an affair with a neighbor. He admitted to the affair before she suspected anything and offered her a generous settlement and divorce. She did not want spousal support but asked that he pay for her to get a college degree. She returned to her old job she had before she was married. She bought a tiny house near her divorced mother (who was CLASSIC covert narc) and worked while attending college. She went on to get a Master’s degree and ended up working for the government. BUT… when I encountered FW cheating, she advised me to stay with him. She said that her ex hadn’t given her a choice about divorce or she never would have done it. If she had a “do over,” she would have tried counseling and everything under the sun to win that pick me dance. And as I valued her opinion, it steered me toward my eventually get sucked into the dumpster fire of RIC. I thought she was mighty but truthfully if her ex came running back, she would have done everything to reconcile.
Sooo… I’m my own example of mighty I guess. I’m choosing NOT to put up with klootzak’s disordered self/cheating/misogyny and I filed for divorce. And I’m exhausted. Some days, I am tired of being mighty. I don’t want klootzak at all and I would never rush into a bad settlement to get this over with, but I have been stuck in the house with him 15 months since filing. It feels like a prison sentence. It feels like I will never be rid of him.
I hope you have retained a lawyer and are taking their advice. There may be a way to put pressure on your FW and speed up the process. Meanwhile, even though my FW and I were living in the same house (with him mostly absent but he did come home a few times per week) I was able to avoid him ~98% of the time by going to “my” room (actually one of the kid’s rooms) every time I heard the garage door go up. I kept snacks and water in there so I would not have to leave often. It sound like a hostage situation but…. it kinda was. I don’t know your situation but anyway do what you can to speed things up a little. 15 months is an eternity – don’t let it go on much longer if you can help it.
Mr Wonderfuls Ex, I hope you are doing well. It is very hard especially if you to be in the same house with a FW. Ugh. I went through about 7 months of that and he finally gave up and moved out because he was afraid of me (laugh, laugh). The divorce took just under 2 years. It is hard to be mighty when you have a FW fighting you at every turn. My exFW fought over every tiny thing he could think of but when we finally had a court ordered settlement conference with a retired judge and my lawyer and I showed him everything (in a fault state so we went for adultery). The retired judge was not concerned about all the videos (yep, FW let his home made porn go to our son’s photo account so we had video evidence (with audio)) of that. The part that turned the case was all the receipts of money spent on Schmoopie and Massage parlor Schmoopies (yes, he kept records of that which were on the the family cloud drive (FW did not know how to turn off that feature). I got a great settlement and am now free of his crap. My son is doing well (he is going to be 30 soon!!!!!). I have every hope he will marry the very nice girl he is currently seeing, although being a Navy wife may give her second thoughts. Keep well and remember it will end soon. As Chump Lady says , “this is finite”. Get the best settlement you can and then drive into the sunset FW free. You are MIGHTY to have endured living with him through this process.
Ithink your friend still showed a great deal of Mighty. Though yeah, I wish that she didn’t influence you to go into RIC because…ewwww. But I think when the FW just leaves the Chump for the AP and the Chump feels lilke they had no choice in the matter, it probably hits different for some. Some FW’s try to stay. That also sucks. Moral of the story, it all sucks. And I believe so firmly and fully in LACGAL. But I also give your friend credit for what she was able to build, even if she would have taken the FW back.
As I wrote this, I am sitting in my truck after jump-starting it with my other vehicle.
The (positive) red cables go on the red terminals of both cars. The (negative) black cables go on the black terminals.
Bad undesirable things happen if you put the wrong cable on the wrong terminal.
People cool with cheating (negative) should stick with each other. People who are not cool with cheating (positive) should stick with each other.
Likewise, bad undesirable things happen if you try to mix cheaters and side pieces with people who are not cool with cheating. Your battery fails, not theirs. Unhook and get away.
Last night I had to jumpstart my car after returning from a trip. Fortunately I had kept my portable jumpstarter in the back. Unhook, get away, and ideally set yourself up to be able to jumpstart on your own if need be!
(Sometimes you still won’t be able to do it on your own, though…)
Please everyone get one of these portable Jumpstart devices! It can save your bacon.
Love this analogy!! 🔋
I did not leave. I was dumped. I found out all the horrible things while I was being a good little b*tch (still) and getting everything ready for the divorce for him. I was not mighty. I was terrified. I had zero faith in my ability to do anything, which is crazy looking back because I was doing sooooo much! I didn’t become mighty until I saw the stuff about kids and then I got pissed and my old self started surfacing. I found my backbone again. And I had some struggles but I did just fine, and I’m better off than he is now. I’m far from rich but I’m ok and the future looks bright.
If you’re in that place, where you feel like you can’t make it and you have to take being disrespected, cheated on, humiliated, like I did, just know this. If you were actually useless, they wouldn’t be with you. If a cheater is with you, it’s because you have value and you add value to their lives. They aren’t going to be with someone out of charity. They are selfish and they use people. The fact that they are with you proves to me that you can make it without them. You can do it. You can have a much better life, there are people out there who will appreciate you rather than use you. Because I think most chumps do A LOT for their partners and families. That’s why they wanted to keep us around while cheating on us for years. We add a lot of value to people’s lives. That’s not a small thing. It’s life changing to have a supportive person in your life, don’t undervalue the fact that you are that.
And I’m going to add, my ex husband dumped me while in an absolute rage. He was enraged because I had been getting healthy and noticing his inconsistencies and lies and pointing them out to him. I think if he had calmed down he would not have initiated the divorce. But by the time he calmed down, he had said horrifying things he couldn’t take back and then when I found out the other stuff, there was no way in hell he was going to keep me so the smearing started. As much as he says he planned it, I don’t think he did, and I don’t think getting rid of me improved his life. I got lucky he got so angry that day. Don’t be like me, don’t count on luck, you don’t have to take this abuse. You can survive, and even thrive, without these sickos.
“If you were actually useless, they wouldn’t be with you. If a cheater is with you, it’s because you have value and you add value to their lives. They aren’t going to be with someone out of charity. They are selfish and they use people. The fact that they are with you proves to me that you can make it without them. You can do it.”
Excellent point.
Great comment KP. Maybe we finally do become strong enough to see something that has always been there, (that the FW is an abuser who wants to dominate and control, however surreptitously) rather than the FW becomes less canny at hiding their nefarious intentions and goings on (although of course that happens too when there is back up supply located). My body was moving around the house looking through filing cabinets, on the computer, for a year or two before, but my mind didn’t even know what I was doing. I remember standing in the garage looking at bank statements not even knowing what i was looking at or doing (mine was a financial gaslighting variety of FW). But I was finally ready to wake up. I don’t think FW changed that much in 3 decades, since like most FWs he is developmentally arrested, but I did.
I believe I was also dumped “accidentally”. Or at least FW didn’t think it through. He really wanted to indulge in cake while keeping me on a leash. My instinct is that if he was told of all the consequences of his “going on his own to find himself, who knows, I may come back 5 months later with an engagement ring”, he would think twice. I don’t think he got what he wanted. I don’t know his child bride but I know myself and the value I brought to the relationship over 26 years, and think it is pretty hard to beat. I think of the pure financial cost of running a separate household, financially supporting and love bombing his new partner, and that alone makes it for a very expensive “upgrade”. Throw in the alienation in the relationship with kids and cost and stress of our ongoing legal battle, it adds up. We were literally 6 years away from entering the financially secure, semi retired, minor child free years of enjoying fruits of our hard work before he went and set fire to all of it. I am much more clearly seeing how I was key in building our life and how now I can use this strength again to build my own, this time without slowing down to cater to someone who undermines me.
Thank you for encouraging me. I feel so down. But you are helping me see I am strong and I was amazing and can be again.
I was the glue that held it all together and I supported him willingly and lovingly. I wanted the best for him because of “us” and especially our amazing adult kids.
My disaster wouldn’t spend a dime or a minute of time investing in “us” (32 years) but has shelled out plenty to get his divorce. He’s kept a mistress on retainer throughout. she must be ok w massage parlors and porn, maybe that’s how he met her. I hope she gets or gives him a disease. Decimated our family. He complains to the kids that “this” (they can barely speak to him, he is a smug prick surrounded by a shamestorm) is “not what he intended” and wags his head to blame me for everything.
His Esther perel books and therapist don’t touch on how cheating and divorce torch the entire family and irreparably damage trust. He repeats the narrative: we both contributed to the demise. To which I vehemently will not accept any responsibility. Nope. I did not live a double life. He chose to be a liar and cheater and did a great job of fooling all of us. We just thought he was an overly entitled dick. He was so asexual with me I thought he had trauma or was gay. Turns out he was satisfying himself with his right hand and human trafficking.
It is hard to cope with that. My fw left me just 15 months after our 19 year old son joined the AF and became completely emancipated. It was hard for me to think that after 21 years he would turn everything we worked for over to the town whore. It about did me in at first. But in time as I uncovered all the lies and financial abuse I felt quite a bit of relief.
She did get easy street for about four years, until he had to file bankruptcy because of massive gambling debts. He never pulled out of it, he just went on to gamble more. My sister in law said he also gambled away their mothers money too, though she didn’t have a lot. I don’t know if that part is true or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Preach, Sister KatiePig.
This is the shot in the arm I needed today.
Many thanks.
❤️
This sounds a lot like my story. I was dumped, I got healthy and started noticing stuff…I’m free from the abuse- but it took me a long time…anway! Now I am here. I think it’s hard to be alone and not have health insurance etc… but it’s so great to be free of abuse. And now I really have fixed my “picker” not that I’m looking. But I no longer try to charm people after they middle dig at me.. it’s amazing how awful so many men are to older, single women. But I am free from terrible abuse. It’s great.
Our stories have some similarities My FW started her affair. For a couple of months I could feel her pulling away. Being the good Chump I was, I of course never suspected the truth, so I drove myself crazy trying to figure out / fix thing. Later, during my post mortem analysis phase I saw her texts to him, trying to keep things as normal as she could with me, telling me she was just stressed out so to just give her time, lining up new bank accounts I didn’t know about, reassuring me again that things were ok just give her time, and finally asking for a divorce. I danced like Fred Astaire for several months to her smug attitude that everything was my fault.
Then D-Day.
Like many of us, she wanted the divorce, but didn’t do shit to make it happen. She left the dirty work to me. .
Both my grandmothers and my mother. One grandmother left my abusive grandfather but she left my mother behind as an infant. It was a hostage baby situation. My grandfather then beat my mom to keep her pure and working. My mother married my father, a violent verbal abuser. She stayed but I was so angry watching this. My other grandma had one baby after another die, 4 within 5 years. My grandfather, a violent rum drinker, put her away at the age of 40 in a mental hospital and proceeded to live with a woman just out of her teens.
I believe I inherited their anger because when my therapist told me my former husband could take my life, due to his mental instability, I listened and locked him out immediately. My heart and soul goes out to the millions and billions of women throughout history who cannot escape and are murdered by family and gangs of zealots. Again, this is why I believe in God. There is no justice for hidden crimes in the universe. ..billions get away with abhorrent crimes. I beg for justice.
My mother. My mother left my father after a 30 year marriage. My father was mentally ill, a cheater, and violent. He also sexually abused me. I have conflicting feelings about my mother, as when I was young, she failed to act to protect me (as well as my siblings), and I am still dealing with the fallout from our family dysfunction.
But she eventually found her courage and did leave, and the life she created for herself was something to admire and emulate. She was a skier, a reader, a world traveler, and although she was a public school teacher so good at managing her money that she left a sizable estate.
When after 35 years of marriage I was agonizing over leaving my now-ex, and worried about whether I could make it financially on my own, she told me what her net worth was, said I would be ok, and I started to cry from relief and gratitude. She helped me to feel and be safe and secure in my retirement, and to strive for a vibrant post-divorce life.
I keep a photograph of her as a young girl full of hopes, a small Thai spirit house she brought home from one of her many trips, a small pine needle native-made basket that commemorates her post-graduate schooling in anthropology and containing some of her ashes, on my dresser, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and thank her.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
I love this so much. thanks for sharing. The things our mothers and grandmothers had to go through. It is better but it’s still bad.
Beautiful memory and legacy!
My mom. I was judgemental of her as a relationship failure for her five marriages. Now I understand that while she may have had an intensely flawed picker, she was brave. She left her abusers as an uneducated woman with small children in tow. I see her now as an optimist. Ultimately she never found her happily ever after. But she never stopped trying.
Maybe you were her happily ever after. She got her kids.
I have chiseled on my grave stone..AND SHE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER … I created it myself. I sent a photo of my stone to my sister and she said, WHY DID YOU HAVE THAT INSCRIBED IN STONE? Who knows what else will happen to you!!! I said, well sis…it’s because after 2 cheaters and leaving them both, never to marry again..nothing no matter what, can take my peace and happiness away. NOTHING.
https://youtu.be/i0hij-L5c-A?si=5i5sLvJ_ULZTnCOx
On this youtube I would not advise telling your abuser you are leaving. I kept my lawyer, my exit plans and my anger,completely concealed and he believed I was going to take him back. That is what saved my life.
My mom has been amazing since my dad left. She got into what she loves doing – politics. She has an amazing network of women friends now. She got the glow up & dad fizzled out. Also, my mom is able to move on quickly in her mindset. She has a steady resolve and refuses to mourn the past. It’s an incredible and admirable skill.
Apart from the venerable Chump Nation, I have drawn the most inspiration from the people that have carried the burden of betrayal more silently than I have. It has been awe inspiring when I meet somebody, the end of my “marriage” comes up (the joys of “are you married/seeing anybody?” in casual conversation) and their revelation of their own betrayal and rebuilding. Many of them are single themselves and have demonstrated great strength and normalized the whole “being strong and single” thing. The message seems to be less “it gets better” and more “there IS better!”
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday!
We should view sharing mightiness not as bitterness or complaining but as a public service to prevent similar abuse through education and example.
Wish I had had an example. Three couples I knew mentioned they were divorced from prior partners, but that was before I knew any of them, and they didn’t mention cheating or violence.
One of my biggest reqrets is that I didn’t call police when he assaulted me and knocked me unconscious after I confronted him. When I regained consciousness and was still lying on the ground, I compounded that by telling then tween, who was also assaulted and flung aside when he tried to intervene, not to call police but to call friends to come help us instead. On arrival they claimed to be Switzerland–interesting that they already knew and used the term–but they actively dissuaded me from calling police OR going to the hospital, which means they were collaborators, protecting FW, not neutral. Had I gone for medical care, the hospital would have reported him.
Although I’ve explained to now teen hat I was concussed and he, then a small child, was following my instructions, he continues to blame himself for not calling police, and has pointed out that friends should have done so. Instead of feeling like a hero for physically stepping in to try to stop the assault, he feels like a failure because he obeyed me and didn’t call the cops. We did report later, but due to the delay, not much came of it. After the assault, I learned Ex had abused child. Many outcomes would have been so much better if I reported immediately, although I got sole custody with no contact ever with child. I now urge people to call the cops the first time someone is violent.
In retrospect, I also realized that assault was NOT the first time he hurt me deliberately. He claimed to have kicked me in his sleep because he dreamed he was playing soccer, but he didn’t play or watch soccer in RL, and there’s no way he could have bent his leg so high and struck my joints so precisely if it wasn’t deliberate. There were many times he laughed off “accidentally” elbowing me in the head while walking by, and more.
After the assault, I refused to let him back in except a few times when court-ordered, and then I had either the court-ordered mediator attorney or hired security present. Despite their presence, he literally ran to other parts of the house and hid his attempts to sabotage it and steal.
He planned and calculated how to evade them, probably much as he had calculated stealing my personal and marital assets.
Until I discovered his cheating, I had no idea he lacked integrity. He got access to my and my family’s assets and drained whatever he could
What a terrible story and monstrous fuckwit. I’m so sorry Goodfriend.
Shout out to R.A. who divorced a womanizing cheater in the 70’s, adopted a daughter some years later, and raised her as a single parent despite NONE of her “friends” being supportive. She wanted the best for her daughter and talked about days where she went hungry with her relatively meager income, so her daughter would want for nothing. (Not that she wasn’t a qualified, highly educated worker…but BECAUSE she was a woman, her pay was barely enough to support the 2 of them.)
In the housing crisis of 2008/2009 she lost her home in the US and was forced to relocate to a foreign land where she could afford to live on her pension income.
So she went off to that new life abroad, although she couldn’t speak the local language, and made many, many friends along the way.
I don’t know a mightier, more inspirational person. She enriches the lives of all who meet her.
strangely, my role models are a bunch of older ladies i worked with in the late 80s, early 90s. at the time, i was a nurse. these women were mostly divorced, left by their cheating husbands who discarded them like bandage wrappers on a hospital floor. forced to return to work at a late age, they re-certified and reentered the workplace.
joanne, left by her executive H, washed the floor as he left her. She laughed about this. In the end, she worked hard, saved money, laughed a lot, and started a hugely successful home care business with her sister, leaving the institutional nursing life.
helen, left by her executive H, re-certified and went to university, too. she worked hard but drank hard, too. drunk, she died alone in her apartment at age 55. was it suicide? I don’t actually know.
at 60+, dorothy, upon discovering her H had spent all of their retirement savings at the dog track, worked part time, clawing her way back to a tidy, small existence. she stayed married, keeping her H on a small allowance and monitoring his behaviour.
mary, largely ignored by her executive husband, bored, re-certified and threw herself into work. she loved it. she was part of a pretty revolutionary team in sexual health–this was pre-transition time. anyway, she had a wicked sense of humour. she stayed married and, apparently, her H adjusted to changing times.
another mary, whose H put all of their savings into company stock, and when the company went out of business, they had nothing for retirement. BTW mary had no idea or actual say in the retirement savings plan, and her H took a lot of her $$, too. it was devastating. already working in community care, she took a second job as a casual nurse, and all of her earnings went into rebuilding their retirement savings.
there were other women, forced to return to the workplace after age 55, mostly because of poor decisions their H’s made. they pivoted, worked hard, and created a life. i’m not going to say that all their decisions were healthy, but they worked hard to recover and i have to respect it.
i was a young woman, starting out, and each of these women quietly took me aside and told me their stories, warned me. gave me advice on diversifying savings, keeping jobs throughout married life, learning about investments, not losing oneself to H’s, and setting up a life after divorce.
did i really listen? no. do i regret it? yes. but i have knowledge now, of what to do and what not to do.
today, it occurs to me that few people would share these kinds of stories in today’s society of instagram perfection, an emphasis on exterior appearances over interior work, etc. etc.
here’s to the women i talked about above, and, particularly Helen, who was so fucking smart, but succumbed.
My mom started the job but didn’t finish it. She left my abusive alcoholic dad at around 40. She never lived with him again. But she remained on good terms with him. Never filed for divorce. Oh,well, it should also be said that he got sober and was a better person later in life but he was still a somewhat diffiucult person that she didn’t really want to be around, yet allowed him access.
Then I married someone abusive and did all the same eggshell-walking she did. I don’t BLAME her. But I will damned if that is the example I set for my kids. I will be the one that breaks this pattern. Gets out. Stays out. And doesn’t put up with the abuse. (that sounds far tougher than I actually feel, this is terrifying and I’m still not convined that he won’t be one of the one’s that flips and harms me- but I am still doing it)
I didn’t have a good role model in my personal life. My grandmother stayed with a cheating alcoholic. My mother was fucking the mailman (what an embarassing clichè) and my father followed suit and had a mistress after they agreed to an open marriage. My mother had a series of boyfriends after that and used to tell me about them, which was incredibly inappropriate and gross. I didn’t know anyone who had left a cheater. My only exposure to victorious chumps who left came from this blog, after I had already decided to leave the fuckwit. Reading their stories did help to cement my decision, so my role models are CL and the good folks at CN. Love you guys.
I was also dumped. He ran off to the beach to live the single life after retiring. I had mostly been a SAHM. It was indeed the break I needed to get my head together, though. I apologized to my kids several times for taking so long to work through it all, and they have been very kind, saying, “You did your best, Mom. We never doubted you.”
Thankfully, my kids view relationships differently than I did when I was their age. Both are far more discerning and willing to walk away. They don’t believe everyone should get married like I did. Both are comfortable in their skin and know that being single is far better than being in a miserable relationship.
I kept us afloat during the early years after he left with multiple jobs and an informal food bank. I got both kids through college debt-free. I ramped up a side business during the pandemic that allowed me to buy a house again and then dialed back to part-time work.
One of my adult kids likes to say, “Mom is the most resilient person I know!” It never occurred to me to give up.
This one hits home for me. When I was a teenager getting ready for an out-of-town family wedding in a hotel room bathroom listening to music and doing my makeup I came out to ask if anyone had a comb so I could do my hair when My father raced across the room and grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the bed crushing me with his weight, I don’t remember how long it lasted I remember my mother and brother didn’t pull him off he let go on his own I went out to the balcony my brother blamed me for making him react like. My mother acted like nothing happened after so I truly thought I was to blame. Many years later I was trying to tell my aunt why I was limiting contact with my FOO and I brought up this incident. To which she replied that my mother told her what happened and even though she wasn’t there she absolutely knew what happened and why I was misremembering she said it was because I was a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum about where we should go and of course that was a legitimate reason for my father to snap.
I bring this experience up because FW was just the tip of the iceberg. My family never wanted me to leave him. Think of your child they said and I did: I thought how on earth will my kid ever grow up to be normal if they if as a mother I continue to make excuses for the guy who sent gay porn to his male coworkers and called me a bitch to random women he was trying to pick up on Facebook indicating he was soon to be available. What kind of male models would my kid have if I stayed with the deadbeat dad who thinks it’s ok to do drugs with his convicted pedo alcoholic father and high school dropout brother or maternal grandparents and other family members who justify violence against the mother for any reason would realistically also try to minimalize and justify violence against her child. It took a lot of planning but I was able to escape FW roughly a decade ago all because I did not want my child to grow up thinking the environment I was in back then was normal.
The skein of fuckedupness started with FW but once it unravels it extends to friends, family, coworkers, etc. Once your eyes are open and you choose to Move on from the dysfunction life gets better, the memories may still cause pain and with healthy coping skills, the dysfunction stays safely behind the boundary wall of the sane parent.
💯 We have to decide to exit the dysfunctional family systems. I’m descended from a bunch of weak PickMe losers who go WAY out of their way to “help” & enabler abusers. My mom is a batshit coercive controller who has psychologically destroyed my doormat dad for over 50 years – who utterly failed to protect me as a kid. Somehow her 2 living brothers and 1 sister totally support her (but will also talk shit about her being crazy bc deep down They Know) and they weirdly treat her as their substitute mom (their mom died in her sleep at 60). All of these assholes betrayed me in various ways during and after my divorce from the Closeted FW. One at a time, I went no contact with each of them when they fucked me over.
The last person I cut off was my doormat dad – he refused to set boundaries to keep in touch without letting my mom get on his phone. He knows where to find me if she ever predeceases him or he divorces her – that’s the only way he’s safe to be in my life ever again. Anyway I’m proud of myself for leaving them the first time they betrayed me and my kids in favor of FW, in any capacity.
Here’s to the breakers of generational curses who have no one in their family line to look up to!
“The skein of fuckedupness started with FW but once it unravels it extends to friends, family, coworkers, etc. Once your eyes are open and you choose to Move on from the dysfunction life gets better, the memories may still cause pain and with healthy coping skills, the dysfunction stays safely behind the boundary wall of the sane parent.”
This is so true. Being chumped opened my eyes to multiple relationships where my caring was not reciprocated.
It was you, Tracy, and CN in general. I come from a family where you work it out if you have problems in a marriage. That was NOT the type of partner I got in the FW XW.
Or, you do as Tracy made clear: you at least leave honestly, without fucking around, and keep your ethical and moral compass pointed to True North as much as possible (nobody’s perfect, but we can usually be a lot better than these scummy cheaters act).
So thank you very much Tracy, for pointing out what my heart and brain knew on some level to be true. I had six months of dwelling on why the FW XW exit-affaired me, feeling awful, crying every day, and not knowing how to deal with the tremendous shit sandwich the FW XW handed me and our family. Then I found Chumplady.com, Tracy, and CN. Thank God. Or the Great Spirit. Or the Universe. Whatever.😁
And thank you CN, for giving me so many examples of similar ways these FW’s all act, allowing me to glean more knowledge about these horrible types of people than I could ever have figured out on my own. For making it clear that there are at least two types of people in this world: those that feel cheating on their partner is ok , and those that do not.
I was raised by narcissists to believe that I was worthless, that no one would ever want to be friends with me, and that I’d better accept any man who showed an interest in me because no man of value would want someone like me. A few months before our wedding, my fiancé swung a canoe paddle at me in full view of my parents. He was angry because I knew how to paddle and despite his insistence to the contrary, he didn’t. (I of course knew better than to coach him or correct him unless he asked. And even then it was tricky.) I was going to leave right then and there, cancel the wedding and never see him again. My father came after me and convinced me to give him another chance because, “You’ll never find anyone better.” The day after the wedding, my brand new husband told me, “Now that we’re married, I don’t have to be on my best behavior anymore.” I stayed for three years, and left after he strangled me and left me for dead on the highway. (My father allowed as how it was a shame — the law used to allow you to beat your wife as long as you didn’t use anything bigger around than your thumb.)
I didn’t have a role model. No one in my family had ever had a divorce, and the extended family shamed me. I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone about my abuse or how/why I left my husband because it was so awful that I left him in the first place, even though he made a really good attempt at killing me. I had no one in my corner except for two friends, one of whom lived two thousand miles away.
When I left the second abusive husband, nearly thirty years later, my role model was my younger self. If I could do it at 33, I could do it again at 62, and I did.
I’m a nurse, and I’ve worked in ICU since 1983. Every ICU has it’s own rhythm of course, but there’s usually a lull about 3 am when some of the patients are asleep and there’s time to sit and eat your “lunch” and chat with your colleagues. I have made it a point, when the subject of domestic violence comes up, to discuss my own experiences. Yes, it’s difficult, and yes, sometimes my colleagues look at me differently. But I have always felt that if hearing my story made an impression on even one woman in an abusive relationship, then it was worth it. I did make an impression on more than one woman. I’ve helped them to identify resources, make an escape plan and carry it out.
I will never be in an abusive relationship again. I’m pushing 70 now, and I don’t date. I’ve learned from my mistakes and even though my picker is much improved, the men in my age group are not. The vast majority of the men I’ve met are looking for a nurse and/or a purse, and I’m not willing to be either, much less both. My step-daughter learned from my example, my niece did not.
Brava! What a treat to be able to have a 3am “lunch” chat with you. I aspire to be this type of mentor for younger women. 💕
I’m a handful of years younger than you, but I certainly get the “nurse and/or purse.”
The last guy who asked me out seemed like a decent prospect until he dropped the bomb that he had a knee replacement scheduled in a few weeks and expected that I’d take care of him. So, was the purpose of the date to find a “free” caregiver? Then, he shamed me for winding down the conversation and excusing myself, saying that I was a “hard” woman.
What about some reciprocity?
My ex left me when he revealed to me that he was having an affair and wanted to be with the AP, but I like to think I never would have stayed if given the option.
At any rate, post-d-day, CL and CN have been my inspiration! Thanks to all in this community. Your strength, your humor, your stories, and your insight have sustained and lifted me during some of the darkest times. ❤️ 💪
This is a great post. I would often say to the kids it is important to be a good role model. My FW was seemingly oblivious to this, had never mentioned it once, but after we separated, whilst he was throwing caution to the wind, told our very messed up teenage son he was so happy he didn’t “have to be a good role model anymore”. Hahhaa as if he ever was.
My son came home wide eyed hanging on to every word his father had told him saying how delighted his dad was about it, and my son, who was in his incel x stoner stage seemed happy his dad didn’t have to be oppressed by his ogre mother anymore.
Anyway my son has since grown up, has a nice smart partner who he treats with respect (thank the lord almighty!), become ungaslit since he barely sees his dad, and I suspect based on the few comments he makes these days now thinks his dad is a bit of a loser dickhead.
I suspect my son will be the one in the family when he has children whose goal is “to be a good role model”.
I didn’t have the example of a person living the freer, better,saner life you are asking for locally. I knew very few ppl closely that were divorced and none who had left their abusers.
I only knew the ones, like myself, who were devalued, disrespected, replaced and left for dead for the younger model.
I didn’t have a choice in any of it, he couldn’t leave fast enough.
A most shame inducing, humiliating circumstance, which felt completely impossible to rebound from at the time, honestly.
It has been the most devastating and destabilizing event of my life, none compare.
But with the help of CN, a miraculous discovery I found very late when the worst was already past, I’m eternally grateful for even then, I began to wake up.
And along with my reconnection to someone I barely remembered having love and admiration for, myself, I painstakingly found a way to machete a path out. I didn’t seem to have a choice when with him but by myself, I have nothing but choices.
Ex FW was completely flabbergasted that I cut him the hell out of my life. He did not see that as even a remote possibility. He hated so much to give up the control and centrality that he had always freely enjoyed.
He already had it worked out in his head that I would remain a ring around his magnificently spinning planet.
He married one of the schmoops and skipped off through the tulips with her. Always having intentions to but cake eat his way through life. I was the essential element in that plan.
Spending the rest of my days watching his amazing life was the position he envisioned for me, from that lonely outer ring he tried VERY hard to get me to occupy.
Nope, that did not happen! Thank God.
Full NC was the only way to stop his cake eating narrative from reaching fruition, continuing to use me as the third side on his warped triangle.
I extracted myself from that triangle and he and the schmoop fell flat on their faces, shockingly losing the third angle. ( according to my kids they spend very little time together,even though he married her in 2020. She stays at an apt and works hours away from the ranch he bought in retirement that he stays on. But they post on social media their perfect loving union per my kids. It is far from perfect in paradise.)
I got my life back and have grown to know it as a massive improvement over being ‘allowed’ to sit in the back seat of his out of control car and watch HIS life dreams being fulfilled. It was never about me I’ve come to know. I was always just the fan on the bleachers, cheering him on and being super proud and supportive.
I never was given the keys to the car we were driving in, not for any of our 38 years married. I just never realized it was all about him, the love I had, unfortunately, blinded me to that.
Well, now I’ve got my own rocket ship to control and can go anywhere I want in this universe! I answer to no one at all.
The control of my own destiny is what has made me ‘better, freer, saner’.
It wasn’t role modeled for me, I saw it on the horizon and I knew I had to find a way to get to it. You just know there’s something better than your heart mangled and trampled on the ground, you just know you deserve more.
I have huge respect from the loved ones in my life and that means the world to me. They get me and support and admire my unwavering and fierce independence and strength that they see and have shared that with me many times.
It feels like justice.Like I’m back to common sense and normality in my life and the keys to it all will always belong to me, forever more.
We are all ( us chumps) being role models for the next generation. Whether we were left or did the leaving, we are finding a way to survive after incomprehensible abuse and pain and those that see us thriving will be inspired by our self love and our no more BS attitudes.
We express it in the way we have moved forward and onward, intolerant of abuse to ourselves or anyone else.
My ex FW is going nowhere fast on his planet and I do believe that on a deep existential level, he knows that to be absolutely true.
Thank you for sharing your bravery. I want to be like you someday. I used to be awesome. That’s why he wanted me then. But he hated me for it and tried to crush me and has shown zero consideration for his adult children. He did me a favor when he left. I was too gaslit and downhearted to do it myself. He has shown zero remorse and I am more convinced every day that God intervened so that I can have a better life. The branches that don’t bear good fruit get chopped out and thrown into the destroying fire. The branches that do bear fruit get pruned to bear more. This is a hard pruning.
What a beautiful post. Thank you for that.
I believe that at a deep level, my ex knew what a wreck he was, but he squashed it down because he couldn’t live with that. He played the victim and argued his entitlements because it made him feel in control, but after he left, my kids and I gradually went our way until he had no more power over us. It’s been a few years now since we heard from him.
I agree with you, especially the last sentence. I do believe most of them know, regardless of the pretty picture they paint for public viewing.
My inspiration was my “Aunt Cousin” Catherine (my mother’s cousin, but we kids called her “aunt”). At the age of 19 she woke one morning when her 4 week old infant started crying, got out of bed and stepped on the floor. She fell down and never walked again. She had contracted polio (Say! Let’s outlaw vaccines, the fifties were soooo much better and nobody wants to deal with autism, right? [rolls eyes] ). Her FW husband was stationed overseas at the time, so the rest of the family rallied around to care for her and the baby. Years went by and she eventually had 5 children with FW. I don’t know the details of who filed for divorce, but in the end she was a paraplegic single mother of five who worked full time to support her family. And as my mother endlessly pointed out to her own sloppy daughters “She does her own housework, including washing windows every week.” (Love ya Ma, and I’m so happy it’s not the fifties anymore.) So when my own troubles started I often thought of Aunt Cousin Catherine and adopted the mantra “She did it so can I she did it so can I she did it so can I”. God bless the badass bitches and bastards of the world.
I didn’t know that I was being abused until my d day. It wasn’t until I started reading everyone’s stories here on chumplady in early 2022 that I was introduced to living a freer, better, safer and saner life.
It’s you all here on chumplady who are my examples of normalizing speaking out that this kind of abuse is not ok! Now, by speaking out and telling my story, I’m helping normalize to my relatives and community that sexual coercion is abuse, covert emotional control is abuse, lying and stealing money in marriage is abuse, secret sexual basements are abuse and cheating is abuse!
I also am trying to get more courage to use the A word…. which some disapprove of using for religious reasons but IDGAF so I’ll say it here and try to normalize it (again)–Adultery is abuse!
I can relate. It’s insane how brainwashed people are by sociopathic adulterers. I was too until it happened to me. I was oblivious. I had no idea what Craigslist was really used for or backpage or bedpage or Ashleymad (I named my robot vacuum Ashley after his gf who can lick the shit the dogs drag in off my floor!). I just didn’t know that pure evil was sleeping in my bed and that I had allowed a demon to nest in my home.
That poor girl. Beasts!
Yes, we have a quorum. I am inspired by Gisele Pelicot. The conspiracy of silence that protects the patriarchy by standing by to let young women to come to harm. I have daughters , I love children, and I’ll be damned if I collude with this violence and cruelty.
My ex tried to force me to sign an NDA to hide what he did to me and my daughters. I told him, “my story is mine to tell”.
My Grandmother left my severely abusive Grandfather when she was given less than year to live due to metastasized breast cancer and died at peace. Fast foward some 40 years later and her example was one of the few things that sustained me through my planning and escape stage. I had had enough of a lifetime of abusive partners and it was time to break the cycle. Her example, her strength and the promise of peace was paramount.
And then… when my own daughter had a issue in her relationship … it wasn’t abusive .. yet but he was struggling with alcoholism which runs rampart in our family. He *knew* the trauma my daughter had endured due to substance abuse in our family. So I guided her through that mess and how to discuss this with him. He’s generally a nice guy and was struggling with his own mental health issues so some grace was appropriate. She was able to have solid communication with him.. set some boundaries and inevitable conclusions (ie the relationship would end) if he/they couldn’t move forward. He’s in recovery, obtained his nursing degree and they are looking at homes now.
It MATTERS what we do… it matters that we set an example for others… WE ALL MATTER in this fight. We are all warriors here.
As always… this group helped save my life and appreciate you all so much. Thank you for sharing your experiences and helping the next one.
I had no one in my life to look to who left their FW, no one who escaped. My family is full of really long, bad marriages. Divorces basically don’t happen. My parents marriage was horrible. My father cheated repeatedly on my mother. He was a cruel alcoholic who actually flaunted his women in front of my mother, myself and my sibling. They were married for 50 years when he finally died. Only since his death is my mother actually living her life for herself. So I had to be my own role model. It took me 30 years, but I finally left. I attribute a lot of my will to leave to Tracy and Chump Nation. It took me a few years of reading the blog, but I finally snapped one day and kicked him out. I have never looked back. I’m divorced and so much happier on my own. I am now writing a book about my experience and it is healing me. So thank you CN. Thank you Tracy! Thank you all for being the role models I needed to finally leave my abuser.
I’m so proud of you!
Probably the most common reason people will stay is “for the kids.” But I will never set an example to my kids that they need to tolerate abuse and disrespect for their sake. I will set the example that they deserve a safe relationship and no matter what life throws at you, you can and will be ok.