My Mother Isn’t a Flying Monkey But She Says Hurtful Things
Her mother isn’t a flying monkey exactly, but she keeps indirectly blaming OP for her husband’s paid girlfriend habit.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I was wondering how other people in Chump Nation handle people who aren’t “flying monkeys” or Switzerland friends, who actually care for you and want to support you, but who have a knack for saying the exact wrong thing, leaving you feeling worse for having talked to them?
My mother is 88 years old. I realize she comes from a different generation. And I realize she loves me and is trying, but man.
Examples of things she has said:
When I first told her, her initial reaction was: “I should tell the family. Should I tell the family?Maybe I shouldn’t tell the family.” In other words, she was dying to tell the family. And I had no problem with that.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“No, no, I won’t,” she replied.
Whelp, I find out later she did tell the family (no problem), but then she swore them to secrecy, telling them, “This is so humiliating for Chumplet.”
Uh, no. Shocking, yes. Infuriating, absolutely. But I hadn’t even considered that I should feel humiliated.
Thanks, Mom.
Now, she wonders aloud why my adult children are so upset with their father and his years-long secret life of strippers.
“If they had more going on in their lives, they wouldn’t be thinking about it so much,” she said.
Uh, no, Mom.
As my daughter put it, “It’s a tough nut to swallow to find out that your father is a disgusting creep.”
But thanks for throwing in that criticism of my kids while we are all struggling.
Finally, yesterday, in a vulnerable moment I told her I felt stupid for not having seen what he was doing.
“You didn’t see it because you didn’t want to,” she pronounced.
Again, no. I didn’t see it because it never occurred to me that he would do something so outrageous, so stupid, and so hurtful. It didn’t occur to me because it would never occur to me to do what he did. So, again, thanks, Mom, for insinuating weakness on my part. Just what I needed to hear.
Oh, and of course, she says she always knew there was something wrong with him. Well, why didn’t you say so? And no, you didn’t. I didn’t and I was married to him for 34 years.
Ugh.
I’d like to still talk to my mother and she’s going to ask about the divorce (FW managed to ground it to a halt for months) and how we are all doing, but …
How do you handle it when people, with the best of intentions (at least I hope she has), say hurtful things?
And what advice would you have for people trying to be supportive of a chump, so that they don’t say the wrong things?
Thanks.
Chumplet
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Dear Chumplet,
I wish I could say yours was an uncommon problem, but I’ve answered versions of this letter over the years. Here’s one: My Mother Blames Me for My Divorce. When this “why isn’t my mother my ally?” issue comes up, I distinguish between crappy mothers (yours) and grizzly bear mothers — the moms who would chase anyone who hurt their child with a threaded pipe.
I wish you had the right sort of mother.
A mother whose first instinct is to protect her child and not absolve her abuser.
WHY ARE WE BLAMING THE MOTHERS, TRACY?!
Pipe down, inner feminist. I’m going to explain this mother. We can apportion blame later. (There’s a lot of that going around.)
Your mother is reflecting back to you the world she grew up in.
Hello misogyny my old friend.
- Being cheated on is shameful. Tell no one. Check.
- The problem isn’t what the Bad Man is doing, it’s that you’re questioning it. Check.
- He’s not deceptive. You lack discernment and really, at some level, consented. Check.
The only thing missing here is your baby weight gain drove him to it. (Or as my grandmother once told me when I was 6 months pregnant: “That maternity outfit is not very slimming.”)
The answer to this entire f*cktangle is that your mother is 88. And in year of our Lord 2026 we are STILL trying to undo this messaging. Hell, I have made an ENTIRE CAREER of it.
Let’s take these poisonous messages one by one.
Being cheated on is shameful. Tell no one.
I find out later she did tell the family (no problem), but then she swore them to secrecy, telling them, “This is so humiliating for Chumplet.”
Who is secrecy protecting? You or your husband’s stripper habit? Why should YOU feel ashamed about something HE did? Something YOU KNEW NOTHING ABOUT AND DID NOT CONSENT TO.
How could you ever feel something so totally illogical? Hello misogyny my old friend! It’s not shameful that men cheat. It’s shameful for you, the victim. And if they do cheat, we need to preserve their entitlement by never speaking of it. If no one knows, no one can hold them accountable.
You’re divorcing him. Ergo, people are going to wonder. So, best to resort to some cover up like “We grew apart.”
I’d challenge your mother (or present her this column if you’re brave enough.) “Why would you think I have something to be ashamed about?”
The problem isn’t what the Bad Man is doing, it’s that you’re questioning it.
“If they had more going on in their lives, they wouldn’t be thinking about it so much,” she said.
Okay, so the problem isn’t that their father has a paid girlfriend habit and a double life, the problem is that they’re thinking about it. In fact, the solution to disturbing truths is not to think about them.
Hello misogyny my old friend! Did you know that for the first 40 years of your mother’s life we believed that unwed mothers were congenitally unfit and should have their babies adopted away from them? And if a single woman got pregnant, she should go to a maternity prison home, at the expense of her family (room! board! concealing the shame!) and hand her baby over! And the remedy given to these women was to NOT THINK ABOUT IT. Because sex outside of marriage is shameful, and they were Bad Women who did a Bad Thing and were unfit to be parents. Google the Baby Scoop era. Look up the pioneering work of Ann Fessler who has collected the oral histories of these women. WHO DID NOT FORGET.
Consider for a moment the breathtaking cruelty of separating mothers and newborns. AS A MATTER OF POLICY. Consider that in 2026 we haven’t begun to wrap our minds around that misogyny before we undid Roe v. Wade. And that we NORMALIZED this.
So, sure, the problem isn’t a man’s sexual entitlement (to impregnate without consequence, to have a double life with strippers), the problem is thinking about it. Which could lead to judgment and accountability. (I could segue here to say, now we get to have our babies, but good luck enforcing child support!)
Ask your mother if that’s the world she wants to live in.
He’s not deceptive. You lack discernment and really, at some level, consented
“You didn’t see it because you didn’t want to,” she pronounced.
Oh, so you green-lit his stripper habit, huh?
This is such a common blameshift. Surely You Must’ve Known. But your mother goes one further — she knew! You didn’t want to know, couldn’t see it, but your mother, who is immune to terrifying vulnerability, she knew.
So if she knew, why didn’t she chase him with a threaded pipe? That’s why I want to know. Why didn’t she string his guts for garters? Why isn’t he at the bottom of a well?
Because she decided not to think about it? Because she believes that men are entitled to behave that way, and you’d best not step out of line or NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU AGAIN AND YOU’LL DIE ALONE. (Same grandmother as above said that to me when I got divorced the first time.)
Hello misogyny my old friend! Your mother is 88. In her world, women could not attain higher eduction or have careers. She was nearly 40 by the time women could have credit cards. Keeping a man was a matter of economic life or death. So you better not get fat. You better win that pick me dance.
Zoom out. Is this a moral failing of your mother to not be supportive? YES. But it’s also a systemic failure. She didn’t invent these messages. We’re all pickled in them.
The good news is you aren’t, and your kids aren’t. Well done. Going forward: Don’t go to your mother with your vulnerability.
As for how to be supportive? Show up with a casserole. Making tangible gestures of support matters more than uttering banalities. It’s more about what you don’t say.
- Don’t blameshift.
- Don’t get a contact high off another person’s grief. “I’m so glad Brian would never cheat on me.” (Something actually said to me.)
- Don’t Monday morning quarterback about how you’d handle it differently and better.
Essentially, if you can’t lead with empathy, STFU.
When I was 29 years old, and my husband asked me if he could date (and remain married, presumably), I told him no and threw him out. The week after at a family gathering, my mother-in-law pulled me aside and said “you don’t know what I’ve had to put up with through the years.” Turns out father-in-law,, a judge, “befriended” young man in prison, and then connected with them physically when they got out. She discovered it by finding a letter she wasn’t meant to see. She told me “if I can put up with that, you can put up with this.” I told her I was sorry she didn’t have more options when she was young, but I did. I had just passed the bar a few years ago and had a job. I divorced him.
Ironically, his brother’s wife told my daughter (who remained in touch with the family) how grateful she was to me because I had “blown that family open and made her life so much easier.” And yes, mother-in-law did go onto divorced father-in-law after that and was very happy.
Very grateful that we as women have options women in generations before us didn’t: job rights, the ability to earn credit, and the ability to own property in our own names. Let’s think about what we can do to make the next generation of women and girls even more powerful.
OMG my husband of 37 years asked for the same and thought it was the perfect solution for all of us. I said NO and my father in law asked me why I felt my then husband shouldn’t have a date if I could not come to an event or he was out of town. Huh ? I said No over and over again and up to the day this was final EH kept telling me the divorce was “silly”and shortsighted.I was breaking up our family, not him. Ba Bye to him and my in-laws.
Chumplet,
I think that rule that I’d apply in your shoes is that people don’t get a free pass to act like d*cks towards you just because they happen to be family. If your mother cannot think before she speaks (so that she can be sure that she speaks with empathy) then she needs to go on the “Naughty Step” for a bit.
LFTT
I don’t talk with ANYONE who says hurtful things.
I learned to LIMIT talking about what’s going on to a VERY SMALL handful of people who are helpful and understand infidelity as we do here. There needs to be more than one person so no one person gets burned out. I realized that, for a very long time, being around me was like sitting too close to a giant bonfire. 😪
I am also very lucky to have a long time excellent therapist who was ringside on a regular frequent basis during much of the so-called marriage. (He was lying to her too). Find one if you don’t have one.
I’m sorry to hear it’s been painful talking to your mother. It would be wonderful to have a mom who was one of the safe and trustworthy people you could talk to. 😪
I did not have a safe and trustworthy mom either, but I have worked very hard to make sure my daughter can talk to me, and she does. ♥️
Chumplet, I think you were on to something when you wrote that your mother was dying to tell your family about this.
Her desire to tell them, and the fact that she told them not to tell you that they knew, suggests to me that she wanted to be central to a story.
At 88, there’s probably not much that’s new in her life, other than health problems, which people tire of hearing. Latching on to your situation, and claiming it’s a secret, gives her something to talk about and a reason for her to get all the sympathy and attention. She may be hoping that the calls, empathy and support your family might have given to you and your kids is going to her instead. She gets to keep sharing your news about the ongoing divorce struggles while keeping their attention focused on her, and possibly her pain over what’s happening. This may not be on an conscious level.
You can reach out to family directly and tell them your mom asked you if you were OK with her telling the family and you agreed, and that you have no idea why she said you wanted it kept secret. Let them know they can get accurate updates from you, and that you and your daughters would welcome their support.
Also, on another level, your mom may be thinking that she is protecting you from getting any criticism from family.
“Hello misogyny my old friend! Your mother is 88. In her world, women could not attain higher eduction or have careers. She was nearly 40 by the time women could have credit cards. Keeping a man was a matter of economic life or death. So you better not get fat. You better win that pick me dance.”
This. I wish my mother was alive so I could ask her forgiveness. I was so hard on her. She had so few choices. But how painful to hear all this blame shifting and shaming. What I love about this letter writer is she isn’t internalizing any of it! And her kids know what’s what! I internalized so much blame and my sons- I mean, IDK. We just don’t talk about him. Anyway, let’s all keep fighting. It’s not over. I love my kids more than anything, but the marriage rate keeps dropping and the child free women numbers keep growing. Because the world hates women, mothers in particular.
My mother is a covert narcissist and I figured out there is something wrong with her when I was 17. I remember telling her when I filed for divorce and what happened, I was fully aware she was going to gossip every chance she had. I just didn’t care. I learned to shrug and ignore. She is 76 and yes, she was raised in the era of misogyny and victim blaming, but she also gets a high off the misery of others. Everyone has somehow caused their own pain except her. She is perpetually the victim of life.
I learned that I have to minimize talking to her in general but if she was like OP’s mother and generally OK, I would just gray rock what I tell her about the divorce. If she asked, I would just say it’s ongoing and there isn’t much to say. You can’t let her get a chance to say something hurtful. Give her the same “cool, bummer, wow” kind of response to any divorce or FW related comments.
I have been divorced well over a month and my mother has no idea. I am not sure when I will tell her. When I am obligated to call her, I do a speaker phone call with my son and we jointly say Merry Christmas or whatever. It keeps me from have a direct conversation with only the two of us where she will feel comfortable to pry.
Congrats on the divorce! 🎂
I’m in the same boat as Chumplet and have learned to not talk to my mother at all about anything related to my ex. No matter how many times I told her she was hurtful, wrong, or outright offensive she refused to change and kept blaming me. Been divorced since 2023 from my cheating ex and am now a single mom, yet my mother talks about me to her neighbors as if I’m still married to my ex. Mom is 75 and keeps saying how awkward “my situation” is for her.
I’m 77 and I’m proud of you. Wish I’d had your good sense.
Wow. ((Celene))
IME that generation either bowed down to misogyny and became a Handmaiden or might actually be pissed off all this time about their lot in life as young women and learn a thing or two even in their 80’s.
Could be worth a try to explain to mom infidelity is abuse and point to Tracy’s blog.
My mother is 85 and this column could have been about her. I have come to rely on statements like, “What an extraordinary thing to say.” I never ask a question like, “Why would you say that?” because it just allows her to say another thing I won’t like, probably about how I am so sensitive.
It’s interesting. My mom is 89, and she never said any of that crap. The only reason she wasn’t out there with the threaded pipe is because Dad was suggesting violence was the proper response and we didn’t want him getting thrown in jail.
On the other hand I have aunts her same age who would have said the exact same stuff. Women who are in their 80s now, have seen tremendous change through the years. I forget sometimes what she has experienced.
Chumplet, I’m sorry you have a crappy mom. But it helps to remember that she is a product of her times. Also, I suspect that this is not the first time she has defaulted to “The man is always right.” My mom does it lot, too. At least her Mama Bear prevented her from feeling empathy toward the jerk I divorced.
I have (had?) a friend who does this. What I started doing was simply defending myself instead of letting the remarks go by. This was more for my sake than hers. I wasn’t trying to change her mind, but it helped me to counteract her messaging right out loud.
Her: “You knew on some level.”
Me: “No, I did not. I did not have my antenna up at all times, hunting out signs of betrayal. The whole point of trust is to be able to relax.”
I dunno. It seems to shut her up, and she doesn’t persist. I think it helps her to hear it, because all of her comments arise from her own deep self-condemnation and self-blame.
I’m from the “give Mom a little grace” school of thought, and tell her when she hurts you, as calmly as you can. Your Mom is a person whose “baby” has been hurt, which activates every protective instinct she has in a primal way and yet she can do nothing to change the situation. In short, a little madness is predictable. I believe she is trying to help you in the best way she knows, and it is up to you to tell her, kindly, when she misses the mark.
If the hurtful behavior persists over time, then you have a different issue.
I have had to limit contact with and basically be grey rock with my 86 year old mom for my whole adult life.
TWICE after my divorce when talking about her anger towards my ex and how she couldn’t understand how he could have a double life like that, she tearily exclaimed “What did you DO to that man (to make him cheat)?!”
Oooh boy did I have a desperate need to talk to my golden big sis right afterwards so she could talk me down and remind me that it’s all our crappy, narcissistic mom.
Today I am understanding that it’s also the system she was raised in, so thank you Tracy!
Oh my. Where to start. First, with the event I suppose. At a company party, after every had many drinks, I turned around while dancing with a friend to spy my FW across the room, both hands gripping the rump of his partner who was also gripping his bottom. They were stroking and rubbing and hunched over (I am guessing around FW’s erection) completely oblivious to the fact that they stood in the middle of the room with everyone looking on. This was in the 70s. No twerking back then! I ended my dance, took FW by the sleeve, and made an embarrassed exit. At home, I confronted him and he said “I was afraid you saw that!” Not “I’m so sorry, I’ve humiliated you in front of everyone you know”. I was 26 years old. The following Monday, sly exchanges with co-workers left me absolutely crushed and I appealed to my mother for advice. That was my second mistake (my first mistake was to bring FW home with me. I should have left him at the party). My mother herself, unknown to me, had been a victim of infidelity by my career military father. She said, “Poor FW probably hasn’t had a drink in all the time you’ve been married. Just ignore the comments at work or else tell them you think schmoopie dances beautifully. Hold your head up high and walk away.” I tried, but I couldn’t bear the constant comments and after a week or so, I put him out of the house. Years later, after a stupid stupid reconciliation, I came down with an STD so terrible that I needed surgery immediately. Lying in my hospital bed, I remembered my own mother requiring the same care after my father spent a year in Vietnam. First rule of asking for help from family: don’t ask anyone who has reconciled with the shit sandwich. My mother told me what worked for her. Your mother has probably done the exact same thing. Most women of their generation have eaten that sandwich. I should have gone to my aunt, who put a boot in the ass of her cheater and raised her sons alone. Seek advice from winners and never, ever confide in losers. They want you to make the same mistakes in order for their personal affirmations. Sorry this happened to you, too. And frankly, the fewer the people you bring into the discussion, the less crap you have to hear.
(hugs) I felt that in my soul. Been there, done that, bought the shirt. I’ve lived it. See below-I’ll be Jeff about it-you get the professional precis and then my personal go-around (or “making it about me”).
First of all, and I am saying this as a mental health professional-if you are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable talking to or sharing with you mother, don’t do it. Nothing says you have to other than you. As our fearless leader pointed out-there seems to be a very particular flavor of Kool-Aid she wants you to drink on this. Maybe she served it to you when you were a kid, but just because she pours for you now does not mean that you have to drink.
Seriously, let’s unpack this.
You are clearly hurting. You are going to her for support. That is instinct, that is how we are socialized. Those were, strictly speaking, the first interactions you have had as a human. You were hurt. You were lied to. You were betrayed. It is completely reasonable that a person in your position would be feeling vulnerable and in need of support. Being cheated on is not a “stubbed your toe” emotionally sort of thing. Because it’s abuse.
Her response has been to completely invalidate your lived experience here. The tenderness you need right now has been replaced with “well yeah dummy, that’s what happens” in a situation where that is completely uncalled for. She should know better and do better.
What’s worse, outside looking in, is that clearly she saw it and failed to intervene in any meaningful way. It’s not that you tacitly permitted it; she did.
Family is supposed to prevent that sort of thing. And I am sorry that she failed you like that. All because your disquiet threatens her homeostasis.
At a minimum, this is not a safe topic with her. She cannot handle that responsibly. There will be no healing with her. No amount of your tears or visible anguish is going to trigger a transformation in her. Go elsewhere. And I am sorry for that. At a maximum? You may wish to re-evaluate your relationship with her.
The thing about Switzerland Friends/Flying Monkeys…they’re not too diametrically opposed to the Traitor mentality themselves in that regard. My D-Day had me asking very fundamental questions about the people that I thought were my friends. And I count fewer friends as a result. Whatever your personal feelings on a person…should you ever be OK with them being abused?
If your mother couldn’t “drop a dime” your Traitor when she figured something was up…what else has she been hiding in her back pocket?
I never had a good relationship with my mother. As I have rhapsodized on before, I watched her cheat on my father multiple times when I was growing up. She was never particularly safe to be vulnerable with and I learned to hide what I was carrying lest it get weaponized. She apparently harbored strong resentment for my now-Traitor but never let me know.
Then when I was actually betrayed…there’s a lot of evidence that they had more contact than I had them. Birds of a feather, I suppose. I would not at all put it past my mother to have supported or even had foreknowledge of what was going to happen (as when I broke it to her she was not at all surprised and offered zero emotional support or even the faux shock others gave). She was never going to be safe to talk to about that kind of thing…and her behaviors since then have validated my stance.
I recently found out second hand that she finally blocked my ex on social media-more than two years later. She never brought any of it up to me directly, but I heard about it indirectly (and yes, annoyingly, got updates on my traitor that I never needed nor wanted-no contact, much like the future, rules.) Apparently she just liked the schadenfreude of watching that idiot fail at life(which she would have had plenty of had she paid attention during the actual relationship, but I digress.)
It took her two years to do the right thing. I am no longer in a position emotionally where I am giving partial credit to people that should and do know better. I learned that I have to keep myself safe because no help is coming because of her. I love her, that’s my mother, I only get one…but I deserve better to live in fear of having the worst moments of my life thrown in my face because I get vulnerable and weak sometimes.
And then she wonders why I never pick up when she calls.
Stay Mighty!