My Betrayer Will Never Be Shamed
The bravery of Gisele Pelicot makes OP feel weirdly envious because she knows her betrayer will never be publicly shamed or criminally prosecuted.
***
Dear Chump Lady,
The outpourings of support for victims like Gisele Pelicot make me feel my own isolation so keenly. I was not hit or raped during the breakup of my marriage, though I felt that both could possibly happen any day while it was happening. Even though actual violence didn’t occur, it felt close, and I was frightened and confused in a way I’d never felt in my life. I thought he might kill me, and I also knew I couldn’t say so because I would be labeled hysterical. I went through something that caused me to feel like I should or would die.
It has taken massive willpower to come back from being abandoned.
My parents are dead, my only brother also died young. My only remaining close relative, the only person who knew me, was my FW. He turned on me and used our intimacy and his knowledge of me to create fear and, not physical paralysis as in Gisele’s case, but psychological paralysis. Two years later, I still couldn’t create a correct narrative of what I’d gone through. It’s still difficult now, after five years.
There is no-one close in my life I can really confide in, who has the time and sympathy to listen. I mete out small portions of my story judiciously and take the empathy I am afforded gratefully, but they are only droplets and glimpses of what, honestly, is a roaring canyon. So thank you so very much for providing a support forum. You have helped me immeasurably.
If I’d been physically hurt, I believe the sympathy and understanding would be there more readily.
And my story would have been understood by a wider net of people. (Starting with the domestic violence community, in fact, who are prepared to deal with violence but whom, at least where I live, were at a loss to help or advise when I hadn’t fled physical violence.)
The stories of egregious violence, like Gisele Pelicot’s, at least for me, have a chilling effect, as in “what have you got to complain about? What happened to you wasn’t so bad”. And it’s true, obviously. Certainly not as bad, and not as outrageous. My life was not clearly in danger, though I felt a murderous rage from my FW.
It’s the physical violence that actually makes the violence stop being invisible to the world.
Nonetheless, I was yelled at, physically intimidated, smeared, ostracized, and I had my financial support and my childrens’ stripped away.
Now, I love and am grateful for Gisele Pelicot.
I love “shame must change sides”.
And I love to hear her voice, her language. I feel terrible for her and it makes me so happy her rapists were punished.
But at the same time, seeing the sunlight she’s received, it makes me sad that my garden-variety betrayer will never be shamed. Instead I have to swallow the pill of lectures from the court on how he is a deserving father, and the insult and disrespect of a divorce judgment drawn with the full knowledge of all parties that he will dishonor it, and that I do not have the means to pursue it — because he impoverished me.
My children do not have a clear directive from society, “your father should not have deserted you”.
I hope one day the opprobrium will extend to more FWs than the worst of the worst. I have no doubt Gisele Pelicot would agree.
ChumptyDumpty
***
Dear ChumptyDumpty,
While you may not get the justice you deserve, I think we all can live “Shame must change sides.”
Your FW will not be publicly shamed. The world continues to not see double lives (infidelity) as a form of abuse. Your ex is not going to jail for abandoning his children.
But, you can refuse the shame too.
That’s where the heroism is — and this is how the narrative changes.
The damage Gisele Pelicot’s husband and those men did to her will never go away. That trauma is forever. But she’s refusing to let those crimes cow her.
From the recent New York Times interview with Pelicot. (Gift link)
She is in good health, with no flashbacks from the years of abuse. A recent operation cleared her of cervical cancer from one of the four sexually transmitted diseases that the rapists passed to her. In February, she paid off the last of the debts racked up by her former husband. And she has fallen in love with a man who shares her life and home, and sits in the next room waiting for the interview to end.
She smiles at me and squeezes my knees as I get teary.
Her message to rape victims: โYou must not give up on being happy.โ
Happy seems like an impossible directive, but my God, if that woman can survive it, we can too.
Yes, BUT SHE HAD JUSTICE, TRACY!
This is where we get into the Pain Olympics. (This is not the Pain Olympics, as I never tire saying.) Pelicot had justice, but she had unspeakable trauma. And is there ever any accountability that can make up for what she endured?
That doesn’t mean we should ever falter on demanding accountability. But the harder work is rebuilding your life. One of the many reasons people cheer for Pelicot, is she took all that shit and hit Return to Sender.
This is not my crime. This is not my shame.
YOU WEAR IT.
seeing the sunlight she’s received, it makes me sad that my garden-variety betrayer will never be shamed.
We don’t control everyone. You shame him. Even with everything that happened to Pelicot, there were men who tried to say she was faking it.
Instead I have to swallow the pill of lectures from the court on how he is a deserving father,
Deserving fathers show up for their children. Emotionally and financially. It takes a lot for the court to sever the primal ties of parenthood. But trust me, your child knows who shows up and who doesn’t. Refuse to wear the shame of a court judgment that thinks you’re a bad parent for hating injustice. Ducking child support is UNJUST. Abandoning parenthood like you’re canceling a subscription is UNJUST. I’m sorry the world doesn’t yet agree, but keep documenting it and talking about it. And maybe in a hundred years people will take sane parents seriously. This is a big ship to turn around.
I do not have the means to pursue it — because he impoverished me.
You have the means, however impoverished, to show up for your children and love them. Again, this is systemic injustice — drugging women to assault them is also systemic — you only have your life. Refuse to let him steal your joy. Love your kids anyway. Fight for accountability if you can, but the more important work is always showing up.
I hope one day the opprobrium will extend to more FWs than the worst of the worst.
Yes, they all get a bench in hell.
Hugs. And happy Tuesday. You’re mighty for enduring. Keep up the fight.
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I understand OP, the deep rage. My Ex who made excuse after excuse on why we couldnโt start a family left me for someone 10 years younger. They post happy family photos with their toddler while my second Husband and I struggle and my never be able to have them.
He deprived me, and his family all cheer for him. People who knew me since we were teenagers, and Iโm forgotten. A road bump in his true love story with the woman he took camping behind my back.
The injustice threatens to consume me, but it only burns my own hand. I tell my truth, and actively work to focus on my own life. I havenโt given up on children yet, and will find ways to have a fulfilling life even if it doesnโt happen. I am with someone who supports me in both big and small ways, and my Mother says she is so glad I didnโt have children with my Ex. We will see what life holds, but heโs taken so much from me. I feel the anger, but I also wonโt let his memory steal on minute more of my one precious mortal life.
They both know, deep down, who they really are and what they both are capable of.
Braken,
I am so sorry. Your story illustrates why cheating isn’t “just cheating”. We can’t get back the time we wasted with these FWs. And it isn’t JUST time. That time costs people so many things. Some bigger than others, some more easily “fixed”.
People who aren’t chumps can’t always see those parts.
It does not seem like it now but you dodged a bullet not breeding with a FW.
That poor toddler. Both his parents are FWs.
I was thinking the same thing. Even narcissists who seem to worship their own spawn as extensions of their own egos will eventually break the spirits of those children and either create self-destructive, depressive adults or the next generation of abuser. In clinical research, children being “prodigied” (invented verb for prodigy) is psychologically akin to being sexually molested because the child is still being used to gratify adult desires/needs all the same. Also typically when kids are older and attempt to express any independent thought or behavior, the gloves of these seemingly doting parents can really come up.
And that’s the best case scenario. I think the more common scenario is that children’s needs are inconvenient for most narcissists so children are usually abused and neglected in more immediate and direct ways from infancy.
Anyway, poor kid.
And what are the chances of that marriage not ending badly?
Abusers isolate their victims. I too have almost no family left but did keep friends and I sang like a bird about the reason for divorce. That’s my own small outlet for that burning rage. Whenever I can I spread Tracy’s message about infidelity is abuse.
Around here there’s a chump in real life who doesn’t want people to know she got a std from ex’s hooker habit and didn’t really want to help me (just talking) during my divorce from a similar FW even though she’d received some expensive stuff from me years prior. So disappointing. In her isolation she only confides in one gossip monger and still hasn’t seen through that frenemy.
I took the opposite approach and yes FW is shamed a little bit by friends and neighbors who ignore him at the grocery store. Why should I be ashamed of a narcissistic sociopaths actions?
Silence is not golden.
I would love nothing more than to be able to move on from the rage, and I do what I can to stay present in the moment. It’s just not happening for me. What he did to me during the marriage is in the past, but what the legal system did to me is an ongoing injury that doesn’t seem to be healing. The problem is that the money he stole, he got to keep, and I am going to have to give up and move someplace cheaper, where I won’t know a single living soul, at age 70, if I stop working. The financial hit isn’t in the past, it’s the present and the future.
Two months ago, FW had a very serious stroke and now he’s unable to work, to drive, or even to use his right side. I wish I could be a more gracious person and feel empathy for him, because he’s all alone precisely when the one thing he needs, is a loyal partner who can be there for him. He can pay for erratic and unreliable home healthcare aides, but he needs what money can’t buy all of a sudden. He made his choice. He chose money and casual sex fuckbuddies, and I walked out. I invested in friendships and relationships, and at least I have that going for me. If anything like that were to happen to me, my friends would be fighting one another over who got to sit by my hospital bed.
Yes yes yes – there are a lot of things money canโt buy, and it sounds like heโs finding that out the hard way.
Community is important as we age, so think about ways to stay near your network even if it means downsizing or renting out a room. My FW narcopath stole a 7 figure sum from us on top so many other abuses, in a HCOL area while he fritters away money on himself and hookers the kids and I scraping by just barely. FW getting a stroke would be a fantasy come true.
So I understand what you mean. Run the numbers, repeat. Work as long as you are able. Assess your network. Don’t act rashly.
I hear you, sister. During my divorce from FW#2, his financial escapades were exposed and (long story) I ended up homeless. He not only didn’t care, he continued to rub his new condo/car/possessions in my face while I was shivering in an unheated basement with my poor cat. My finances still haven’t recovered 16 years later.
He also eventually had a stroke, probably due to some really bad lifestyle choices, and started sending me long “poor-me” emails which I proceeded to ignore. A few months later he died and I had a hard time dredging up any kind of feeling about it. [I told my current husband about it and felt compelled to explain that I had just put eye drops in and I sure as hell wasn’t crying over him!] Of course, he had taken me out of his will, and the only communication I had was with his older daughter from a previous marriage; she also flaunted her takings from the will so I sent a “sorry for your loss” email and then blocked her.
I’ll also mention here that when I called several women’s DV support groups during FW#1’s continued psychological abuse, none of them would help because, at least at that time, I wasn’t physically injured. One of them even berated me on the phone (“Who gave you our number? Why are you calling US?”). I certainly hope that things have changed in that respect.
Not only are you not obligated to feel empathy for your abuser, it would be appropriate for you to enjoy a bit of shadenfreude at his expense.
The financial hit is something you can’t get over the rage about. So don’t expect yourself to, it’s an ongoing injustice.
As you say, at least you have people who care for you, which FW does not, and deservedly so. Is it possible that when you retire you could share a place with a friend to lower your living costs? Quite a few divorced women have done this with great results.
I’m over 60 myself and when I left FW several years ago I had to move to a place where I knew nobody. However, I have met some lovely people here so it turned out to be a good thing.
“The financial hit is something you canโt get over the rage about. So donโt expect yourself to, itโs an ongoing injustice.”
That is yet another thing that non-Chumps don’t understand about cheaters. The impact can affect the chump for a lifetime. The financial stuff can vary chump to chump. It can be immediate and catastrophic like becoming homeless, or it can be more subtle and mean that a chump is in a less stable financial state and may stay that way as they get older and move towards retiring.
When my youngest graduates from high school, I will probably have to sell the marital home. In theory, I could buy him out at that time, but realistically, this house requires 2 incomes. This isn’t the end of the world. And many Chumps have so much worse to deal with. I won’t be happy to leave, I love my little house but this is one of those “it is what it is” situations. That doesn’t change the fact that it is part of the FW “gift” that keeps on giving. And certainly many chumps deal with much harsher financial realities. Ideally, I move further from the city than I am currently, stay near enough to friends/family, and end up in an affordable condo that helps me stay financially stable.
I know, I do have some options, but life would be so much simpler if I could just stay where I am. I don’t have a particularly extravagent life.
I think you’re very generous even to even wish you felt empathy for the ex. I– alas– am not so nice. In your shoes, I’d probably cheerfully be humming Elvis Costello’s classic FU ballad Tramp the Earth Down (about late PM Thatcher but same principle) every time I thought of FW’s self-imposed lonely decline. (Give a listen and see if it catches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-BZIWSI5UQ )
It has been a little over eight years since DDay for me. Sailing over a very stormy and turbulent sea of rage, despair, grief, depression, anxiety. But I am not in that boat alone, thank goodness.
It has taken me a very very VERY long time in this process to realize and feel that what Marcus Aurelius said almost 2000 years ago is true:
โWhoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself worse.โ
He argues that wrongdoers harm their own character, and that the best revenge is to not resemble them.
Crap character will keep anyone out of the best seats in the house of this one life we get.
They really are their own punishment. But itโs a very long voyage over that sea I talked about to get to the place where you truly feel it and believe it.
Hang in there.
PSโฆ.I happened upon a photograph of Gisele Pelicot with Camilla Parker Bowles, the notorious queen of affair partners, an abuser who fancies herself as some kind of champion for domestic violence survivors. I wish Gisele Pelicot had the ability to see her for who she is and declined the invitation to tea and the photo op. My fantasy is that Gisele politely declines the invite saying, โI canโt accept your invitation because of your status as an abusive female.โ
(Diana doesnโt get a hall pass for cheating either.)
Cheating is abuse and all parties to it are guilty.
โฅ๏ธ
Now I’m legally divorced, I’m starting to feel the consequences of what he did, and the finantial abuse he’s putting me through.
I won’t find justice. We have both jobs, so for my country’s judges is enough to rule you out from a pension.
I understand you OP and I want to hug you.
And for Giselle Pellicot, she deserved so much more justice and a finantial reimbursment from french justice yet still… somewhat judges decided she have to pay whatever that POS spent.
I hope for all chumps happiness, and of course… tuesday.
Yes, Ms. Pelicot got to pay his debts! That’s adding insult to unimaginable injury. Maybe the judge couldn’t resist issuing a “f**k you, victim” from the bench, from on high.
I understand how you feel. I also felt a small pang that my horror story remains my burden while FW lives a glorious life with a new wife appliance. At least Mr Pelicot and the 50 other weird depraved men will spend time in jail. Publicly named and shamed.
Gisele Pelicot made a conscious decision to look glamorous each day so she wouldnโt be dismissed by the media. In interviews she has shared her story, and the toll it has taken on her children.
I am working on being happy with what I have (not much) while still mourning what I loss (my health, the money I worked for & saved, the future I thought I had with my college sweetheart of 40 years.) Thatโs why we are all here. Looking for support & comfort.
Your losses truly suck. Sometimes it’s hard to be grateful for what’s left โ a useful mental discipline. FW has a “glorious life” because he is shallow. If he dealt you horror, that makes him soul-less. The trash took itself out!
Cheaty McLiarface will deal with little external shame because he has spent decades setting up the narrative that I’m the problem with friends and family behind my back. Meanwhile, I was 120% on Team Cheaty. Never talked him down to others. Created an image of an ideal marriage.
It took a while to get over the lack of contact much less support from people (the Switzerland and flying monkey types, I came to understand) who have been in my life for decades. And I still have moments where I lament how completely unfair it all is. But I’m grateful that they’ve weeded themselves out. Replaced by genuine empathetic human beings. How refreshing.
I feel this too, and it’s been about 9 years. Also no extreme or overt abuse, such as physical violence or rape. Some rape-adjacent behavior (coerced into sex post-discovery only to cry through the experience and have him inform me that in some legal contexts I have forgiven him by “consenting” to it – very effed up) and the emotional and mental manipulation by an undiagnosed sociopath (so I don’t even have a solid diagnosis to confirm what I know to be true). I am still working through what this level of betrayal has done to me emotionally and mentally in therapy. I don’t expect justice, but as Tracy said I can refuse the shame of someone else’s otherwise criminal (maybe not legally, but in the eyes of all that is good and decent) and abusive behavior. You can’t compare yourself to others – your pain and experience was real, it was hurtful and impactful to you and your life, whether or not it can command a collective gasp from the world. And we in this community know – there will always be people who understand on some level what you went through. It was terrible, and you are not alone in your pain or your triumphs as you work your way through it all.
First of all-I would imagine her flashbacks from the horrific trauma that Ms. Pellicot experienced are well managed-I very much doubt that they are all the way gone. Trauma “be like that” as the kids would say. That takes a lot of work and a lot of bad days(like the one you are having-and that’s ok! They happen!)
It’s ok to go through what you are going through. You’re not alone(even if you feel that way). The people we trusted most in the world were also the people that taught us what real isolation is. And they further tricked us into believing that is how it would always be-even in their absence. My takeaway from the Gisele Pellicot story is a lot more about personal resilience, coming out of our personal hells and walking into the sun. Healing, at least in my experience, is a very personal journey. We just don’t have to do it alone if we don’t want to.
Believe me-I get it. The only people in my universe that fully empathize are the people that it has also happened to. My Traitor will never be tarred and feathered the way I would like her to be. My own mother had apparently maintained contact with her until very recently I found out (and lo and behold-there is a reason I do not talk to my mother). It sucks. It really does.
I had a couple of revelations about all of that though:
A) The conversations about cheating being abuse are happening and ongoing. We are sitting on the bleeding edge of that knife going Mach 5 toward the future (and the future, as always, rules). It sucks that we are not there now. Ms. Pellicot, Melinda Gates, Beyonce, and others are helping pave the way for even more conversations. Those conversations happening, us making our voices heard? That is how the change happens. That is how our gardens get that particular wavelength of sunlight. We have to keep fighting.
(side bar on all of that: one of the most interesting days in my career, I think I have shared on this experience before, but it bears repeating-the day Gender Identity Disorder became Gender Dysphoria in the DSM. Our understanding of issues evolves as more voices are heard, as more people gain understanding…and we admit that there are things that we were wrong about in that fashion.)
2) The way my Traitor would need to be pilloried, humiliated, cast down, torn apart, and gutted for me to be 100% satisfied with her defeat and to feel that ledgers are completely balanced with her simply does not exist. How does the saying go, “if you seek revenge, dig two graves.” It’s like a different layer of relationship policing-the level of dehumanizing horse hockey involved is not worth the effort.
So I give her the real punishment: the world I am not in. “…but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you’ll know the debt is paid.โ
There is no punishment for these Traitors greater than letting them be themselves-they will get theirs in the end. They always do. It will hunt them. It will find them in some quiet moment when it catches up to them-just as our quiet moments haunt us sometimes. We just don’t get to be there to watch because we are moving on with our lives.
The justice we earn is not of the traditional shape. I am a victim of gun violence among my other traumas(yeah, I’ve had a rough go of it, but if you’re reading this, you have too, and I am sorry). I was sagely advised by my victim advocate that “there is no healing in the court room.” We grow bigger, better, and stronger. And we live in the social media and AI world. It’s hard not to conceive of any picture we see with a great degree of skepticism.
I give no more of my life or energy to that person, save for the occasional nightmare and latenight regret when all of my daily allotment of serotonin and dopamine have left for the day to their own wanderings robs me of that piece of control. Then I wake up again, lower my crown, and continue my conquest.
There are supports out there-this is one of them. It is truly horrible that there is not the wider understanding of what we go through with all of this. My friends very fortunately do not understand what this is like-and they are better for it. I don’t want anybody else to have to go through this. I’m happy if it had to happen to anybody I care about that it happened to me. It transpires that I am almost custom built for taking those hits.
It is times like this where I wish it was easier to reach out more privately and individually-though I completely understand why we can’t in this space.
For what it’s worth ChumptyDumpty, having said all of that today…I’m proud of you! I think you’re doing great. It doesn’t feel like it-but if you’ve ever had major surgery, you know that healing is its own unique, hard to understand kind of pain(and where I come from? Pain is Strength.) You spoke up, you didn’t let this kill you, and by your own admission you used your own willpower to pull yourself out of the black hole called “Betrayal.” That’s…huge! Bigger than the black hole, even! Give yourself more credit.
I really don’t have a lot of sunlight to give today, but you are welcome to all of mine if you’re feeling dark.
Happy Tuesday to those that celebrate!
I differ from your victim’s advocate in that, from my experience, justice is the best PTSD treatment. Maybe healing doesn’t come from the typical criminal plea deal process but a jury of twelve of my peers managed to give that to me in a civil trial. They were unmoved by the workplace perp’s biggest lies and most gymnastic blameshifts and handed me a massive award. Even if I never bother going through the rigamarole to collect, the ruling included malice so the creep can never declare bankruptcy to get out from under the debt and it will hang over him like the sword of Damocles for the rest of his life.
That incredibly diverse jury that included members of every living adult generation, class and ancestry is permanently burned into my brain and represents the best of humanity to me. Also the three medical experts who testified on my behalf. I stil tear up when I think about them and how this restored a lot of my faith.
But I’m with you that a close second as PTSD treatment is your prescription to “keep fighting.” For one, I’ll also never forget a speech I heard from humanitarian and eco activist (maybe Arundhati Roy?) about how joining the cause is the best way to fill out your social life. There is a problem of frauds being attracted to good causes (“communal narcissists”) but one does meet a higher percentage of stellar people by getting involved in organized advocacy.
But just as important as correcting the social isolation that plagues most survivors of domestic or sexual abuse is regaining a sense that life has meaning. For me, one way to do that is to share the things I learned that have helped me. I don’t know why this is so effective in digging out the “shrapnel” and healing trauma but I think one of the primary injuries that abusers and rapists inflict on their victims might relate to something called “projective identification.”
That concept seems to have varying interpretations but the description that resonates the most with me is that victims somehow traumatically osmose the guilt and sense of being tainted that perpetrators refuse to own and actively “project” onto victims (in order to justify victimizing people, perpetrators apparently alter the identity of victims so that victims seem to deserve or want the abuse). It sounds almost like a telepathic transference. Then, along with victims losing their own identity and taking on part of the perpetrator’s identity (at least the guilt, self hatred and shame part), victims also arguably absorb perpetrators’ nihilistic views of humanity and life.
For some reason, inducing trauma seems to increase the “absorption” of perpetrators’ own nihilism and self loathing a bit like how breaks in the skin increase absorption of infectious pathogens. In any case, that’s what it feels like and, from first hand experience, the only thing that comes closest to “fixing” projective identification is joining some effective humanist front and nestling in among others who are trying to better the world.
Like I said in another post, though most progress is one step forward and two back, I agree with the Camus quote about Sisyphus: โThe struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s [/woman’s] heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.โ
“Maybe healing doesnโt come from the typical criminal plea deal process but a jury of twelve of my peers managed to give that to me in a civil trial.”
I relate to this so much but it wasn’t in court. I got a new phone number and had to do the thing where you reach out and tell people about the new #, many who I hadn’t seen in a long time. This opened the door to explaining to a good number of them that I was in the process of getting divorced. And why. I gave the barest of cliff’s notes version.
The number of people that rallied, offered help support, etc was astounding. Also, several people that didn’t know him well at all said they always suspected he was a FW.
So not a court, maybe more a court of public opinion.
But this was so helpful for me. To see so many people who saw through his charm? Felt great.
I know not all Chumps are afforded that. And that sucks. Because it made a huge difference for me.
It’s pretty sad that it took what was done to Mme Pelicot for there to be such universal sympathy. No doubt it’s harder to blame the victim when she’s been drugged–although several of her accusers tried, or suggested consent had been given because they’d been invited to rape her by her husband, a brazen claim given the name of the app–“Without Her Knowledge”–they were using to find women to rape.
I’d like to believe that her admonition “shame must change sides” will trickle down to other instances of abuse, but I don’t have much real hope. I do think her courage in going public can help others of us who have suffered abuse of other kinds.
My friend and I were both sexually abused by our biological fathers. We have a few dark jokes we share whenever we see victims get a huge payout from an estate, church, or organization. Things like: “If only my father had been a priest!”
We joke because what else can you do? Our fathers both never faced justice. If I were to share my story, I know I would never be believed by family and family friends. There will be no sunlight, no day in court, no payout, or catharsis.
I spent my youth in broken pieces, hopelessly depressed and crying out for help. I wanted someone to see how wounded I was, someone to say something, someone to care. Around 20, I realized no knight in shining armour was coming, and even if he did, he couldn’t really help. He couldn’t undo the damage. He couldn’t sort out the jumbled mess of my mind. Only I could do that.
I had to pick myself up. I had to fight for my life. Our abusers “win” when we collapse inward and stop fighting for our own happiness. Our abusers “win” when we let our victimhood define us. Our best revenge is a healthy life well lived and loved, despite their efforts to break us.
Chumpty Dumpty – CL and previous commenters have posted many wise words. I won’t add to that, but just wanted to show up here and give you a {{big hug}}
Yes, don’t give up on happiness. Gisele is very right on that front.
In my mess, I somehow got the idea that things would get better. Even working three jobs (one in retail-ugh), there were moments of purpose and peace. Each visit to my wonderful attorney confirmed that we would eventually get the legal break to end the marriage. And we did.
It was unjust that my ex treated me the way he did. And it was unjust that he basically tossed aside our college kids in the process. But that’s all on him. Our job is to figure out the rest of our lives without him.
Hi Chumpty,
You’ve probably heard this spiel before but I’ll repeat it for what it’s worth and for any newby lurkers: I would recommend seeking resources by experts on coercive control like books by Dr. Evan Stark, the Substack accounts of Drs. Emma Katz and Elizabeth Dalgado and the Youtube channel of Dr. Christine Cocciola. I’d also suggest seeking support from someone trained in understanding coercive control. Psychology Today’s online provider database includes mention of this as a specialization and Dr. Cocchiola’s website has a state by state list of therapists directly trained by Dr. Cocchiola who is also a professor.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m particularly impressed with the “bloodline” of Dr. Cocchiola’s network because she herself is a clinical successor of the late Dr. Evan Stark who, aside from being one of the original founders of the shelter movement in the US and UK in the 70s (whose clinical studies and writings I read as the core of training to work as an advocate for survivors back the late nineties), was one of the main spearheads of the global movement to criminalize coercive control in the last few decades.
I think this “bloodline” of research is the reason Dr. Cocchiola understands not only the tactics and risks involved in this type of abuse but the politics of it which is in turn probably why she’s been effective in moving legislators around the country to provide better protections for survivors and their children. Though so far in the US these protections are mostly civil such as getting orders of protection and appointing victims full custody of children in some circumstances, it’s at least a step towards full criminalization as in the UK and Scotland.
And here’s the thing: the reason coercive control has been criminalized in some places is precisely because the risk of doom you felt in your marriage to an abuser (and probably more so in the post-separation abuse period) turns out to be statistically demonstrable. As Stark discovered back in the early aughts through his own research and related studies, the existence of coercive control in intimate relationships– more than histories of assault– is the most accurate predictor of eventual domestic murder.
So there’s also a reason you experienced the double torment of not being able to prove the danger your gut instincts knew you were in. That’s something else that reassures me about professionals trained within the perspective of Evan Stark– that they would on principle understand the added, isolating “sociopolitical” torment experienced by survivors whose trauma is often minimized by bystanders because of a lack of bruises and broken bones.
But therein lies the “prank” performed on survivors of coercive control– this false message that, if only they could prove physical violence, they’d get more social and legal support. But it’s simply not true. From firsthand experience, I have to give the heads up that the supportive treatment that Giselle Pelicot received is highly unusual. In fact, the whole reason I ended up training as an advocate for survivors of DV back in the day was because of my experience criminally prosecuting a workplace stalker, which is that almost every bystander and legal or helping professional I encountered through that ordeal showered me with victim-blaming psychobabble on the mistaken knee-jerk assumption that I must have been romantically involved with the stalker. These people would usually (but not always) hurriedly backpedal on discovering the perp was just an obsessed coworker but the impression this made on me remained, which is that battered women were still being heaped with blame and contempt for their own victimization.
I thought it was absolute bullsh*t and also terrifying. Even people who understood that I hadn’t dated the stalker in question would still use my situation as a comparative stick to beat battered women with, saying things along the lines of “At least you’re not like those [sneering curl of lip] battered women who are addicted to abuse/never leave,” etc.
I also got directly blamed for “leading on” the perpetrator by some bystanders (someone actually blamed my short skirts) but I’d say that the most common negative bystander response was to bash battered women. It made me feel awful to receive support only at the expense of other victims. But I discovered that I couldn’t say as much because that support could quickly be withdrawn if I dared to speak up for this other class of survivors which could have been deadly in the case the DA dropped the charges.
Anyway, this is what drove me to train as an advocate when I found an alternative resource network that, unlike most state-sponsored DV shelters at the time which tended to adhere to the “codependency” theory of battered women, followed the non-blaming precepts of Evan Stark and his wife and fellow researcher Ann Flitcraft. We used to joke that we followed the “Church of Stark” but that’s because he was one of the very few clinicians and academics brave enough to take on the establishment and tear apart prevailing traditional views in victimology.
I wish I could say that the changes forged by Stark and others had taken permanent hold but one glance at who’s running the US suggests otherwise. In fact, I’ve seen the one-step-forward-two-steps-back pattern in clinical and public conceptions of intimate partner abuse and sexual abuse repeat itself so many times in my lifetime that I’ve come to realize that any progress achieved in one generation is “Sisyphean”– meaning that every generation is going to watch that rock roll back down the mountain and push it back up again in order to maintain any advancements in the social and legal treatment of survivors.
All of this is by way of saying that even if the helping professionals in your region are as stupid as those I encountered during my own ordeal, not everyone would view your experience as somehow falling outside the realm of IPV. You’re not alone by a long shot. But those people will always be seen as “revolutionary” and cutting edge and their views no matter how common sense and demonstrably, statistically true those views are, and will always be embattled and never quite “mainstream” to the extent that abuser coddlers and victim blamers seem to be pathologically driven to dominate the narrative on abuse even in a global sense.
But so be it. Personally I’ve come to embrace the outlier “dark side” of advocacy because they have better cookies (better science, truer truth, etc.) and the company is way better than the retrograde victim blaming dork sector.
Giseles’ pain is NOT removed by justice…justice would be those men get the same treatment she did in the same way..I can’t believe someone would write no flashbacks, no problem, all happy now… hey and your reward? Another man -albeit a good one. No Gisele will NEVER be the same. Not one of us are. I’m still hearing the comments of former woman Friends who knew my sneaking lying cheating “SWEET” husband and CANT BELIEVE IT because he was so nice!!! The old spiritual “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus is true. There will be a front row seat for each of the perpetrators and there is no justice like that. And if my C-exH skips away into the sunset, I believe in celestial justice, karma would not do enough..too slow. Dear CD- go out with your head up as it’s an inner job to hold firm. You cherished your vows and held to your marriage and were trashed for it. It may break you, yes,especially the covert men like mine who had guns in drawers, under the bed, in the closet and then pressed his body into mind and SAID YOU ARE NOT MAKING ME HAPPY. You can’t explain that. I thank God every second of every day that i am on my own and that the 46 years with 2 cheaters is over. Been there done that. My heart is with every person on this site and my gratitude to Tracy for letting me share, is beyond human goodness and enters the spiritual world. No one can keep us down, no, we rise up and keep fighting the good fight.
None of us at CN got justice for what was done to us. Not only that, in many of our stories we were blamed and ostracized even by our own family and so-called friends.
So, since there is no justice that comes from without, it has to come from within. It has to come from rising above, as Pelicot has done, and building better lives. That’s easier said than done in most cases, but the effort is well worth it. In fact, it’s essential to make that effort. Staying stuck in our misery is not a viable option.
So my dear ChumptyDumpty, I think you need to find people who can offer you the emotional support you need IRL. Again, easier said than done, and again, essential. In the meantime, work on your healing as much as you can by yourself. I’m not going to suggest a therapist because so many of them are terrible and make you feel worse, plus they are expensive. It would have to be a therapist who recognizes that what you went through is abuse, which may be hard to find, and it sounds like you might struggle to pay for it right now. I would recommend free and very inexpensive stuff like EMDR apps and binaural beats, which helped me. Some people find meditation helpful. You have to figure out whatever it is for you that soothes you and helps you to heal. It could be prayer, or nature walks, or adopting an animal, etcetera. You need something to take your mind off ruminating about the injustice. Since you’re not going to get the kind of justice you want, it does you no good to even think about it. You can just acknowledge that reality and then proceed to work on your own internal form of justice. It worked for me and has probably worked for every veteran chump here. Trust us on this. Trust CL on it. It does get better.
If the DV folks in your area don’t recognize emotional abuse and coercive control, they are behind the curve on this. When I told the DV center in my area about the emotional abuse, they immediately offered me shelter and counselling. I’m astounded to hear that any DV organization would say they can’t help you to recover from EA and CC. Is there another DV resource which is available with not too much travel time which you could turn to? Or perhaps an online resource?
At any rate, you always have the good folks here at CN. Have you gone to the private CL groups? I understand they are good places to go for support. I wish you swift healing and hope things get better for you.
Sorry to threadjack but how does one get to those groups?
CL has the links listed under Community.
My trauma and rage have yet to be dissipated. As well as my longing for justice and karma. Society may not shame my eX, but I do. May all who have been traumatized by sexual betrayal be healed. I’m grateful to Giselle for her public sharing of her story; it helps the world SEE how much some men literally hate and want to hurt women.
I understand OP.
I know thereโll be a reckoning for the two horrors I was married to who have both done unthinkable unspeakable things to shift blame and exercise their perceived power over me.
Their fellow cheaters they are with now will get the same- two men who lie and cheat- woohoo! One has the added bonus of violence, arson and animal cruelty – Yaaay!
The other has the privilege of a child who has seen and knows what a loser and despicable person he is. Father of the year for sure.
Their character is their fate.
It all comes around- publicly or not.
Just came on here to say, in case you missed it, another abuser, Bill Gates had this to say about his Epstein connection: Bill Gates: โI did nothing illicit.โ ๏ฟผHE EXPOSED HIS WIFE TO STIs WITHOUT HER CONSENT AND THEN PUT ANTIBIOTICS IN HER SMOOTHIE WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE. That is crazy โillicitโ in my book dude. What he means I think is โI didnโt have sex with children.โ just Russian models. OK, who odds are overwhelmingly excellent were trafficked. ๏ฟผGive ๏ฟผthe man a medal! Jesus f*cking Christ. ๏ฟผ
โI thought he might kill me, and I also knew I couldnโt say so because I would be labeled hysterical.โ
Totally understand. One of my biggest concrete problems in the aftermath of the betrayal was making sure my ex got her gun out of the house. I didnโt think sheโd kill me but I also didnโt trust her not to. That kind of betrayal changes you!
I just wanted to share on this recent mention of Gisele Pelicot that her book, A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides, was released a couple of weeks ago.