Tired of Being the Villain
He’s got a couple more years of co-parenting with his serial-cheating ex, but he’s tired of being the villain in her narrative. Even his mom wants to stay friends.
***
Dear Chump Lady,
It has been several years since my cheater ran off with her affair partner. In that time, I can honestly say I’m much happier now than I was before, and even if everything isn’t all sparkles and rainbows, I’ve done okay with what I’ve got. I’ve got 50-50 custody, and my youngest is almost grown.
What I am struggling with now is the subtle and devious PR campaign my ex has waged on me since then.
The facts are that my ex was, by her own admission, a serial cheater who started having affairs when we had only been married a few months. I don’t know how many Other Men there were (at least 3), but it doesn’t matter as it more than zero. She suddenly moved out to live with the last affair partner right after D-Day, leaving me with two sobbing, confused little kids.
When that relationship fell apart a few months later, I refused to be the consolation prize and take her back. I would add that in every other way she was a really bad spouse, from giving terrible gifts (or no gifts) to disappearing during holidays. As a single mom, she doesn’t seem to like spending time with our kids, and often returns them to me early.
All that said, I would describe her as extremely charismatic and persuasive.
I used to joke that she could easily be a successful cult leader. With no effort, she can get people to believe the best about her and to want to help her. She can make anything sound funny. She gets strangers to pay for her vacations. I’m told she has thousands of followers on her social media accounts, people who have never met her, but love whatever funny stuff she puts on there about being this wonderful single mom. The chumpy ex-husband and the traumatized kids, of course, are an impediment to this image.
She’s very cleverly told people a twisted version of things. She “said some mean things” (not the terms I’d use), but she was sorry (oh no she wasn’t), and I was stubborn and bitter and wouldn’t forgive her. See, the fault is really on me, the Big Meanie that won’t forgive her of these “mean things.”
I’ve had to switch where I get my hair cut, my car fixed, and take my kids for sports because one of her admirers is convinced I’m a heartless troll.
Her parents got in on it, hinting to people right after she took off that I was going to hunt her down and kill her (I’m not kidding). I’m sure that was intended to deflect any judgement on her adultery and abandonment of her family. (For what it’s worth, I’m a very gentle, law-abiding person who’s never hit a woman or a girl.)
Thankfully, that smear didn’t gain traction.
I’d be okay if it was limited to people outside my family. It’s one thing to tell this to random people I don’t know, but it’s another to sell this hogwash to my kids. My oldest, who knows what happened is now an adult, refuses to spend a lot of time with me as he says I “needed to get over it.” My youngest, who still does not know the whole story, has also made comments about how Mom says I just won’t forgive her.
She’s put a charm offensive on my own mother. Mom takes care of her house when she’s gone. She displays my ex’s Christmas card on her fridge, right next to mine.
I don’t engage other people when they try to repeat this stuff, but hearing it from my own kids is breaking my heart. And I can’t believe my own mother would eventually fall for it.
Sincerely,
Tired of Being the Villain
***
Dear Tired of Being the Villain,
Ugh. I’m sorry. Character assassination is just what FWs do. Think about this strategically. If you’re going to be a colossal fuck-up, you need to cloak yourself in glory. Be dazzling charming. Or incredibly hard-done by. Or winsomely in need. Because FWs fundamentally understand something that chumps don’t:
Effective manipulation is about how you make your mark feel.
Special, chosen, graced by their presence. But also heroic, generous, and magnanimous. When your mom helps your ex out, she doesn’t feel used. She feels NEEDED. She can think good things about herself. Gosh, she forgives! What a thoughtful person Mom is. So excellent at what she does.
You, on the other hand, with your truth telling, are a big bummer. Chumpdom leaves everyone with icky feelings. Guilt. Complicity. Awkwardness.
Why couldn’t you just eat the shit sandwich and go along with the friendship narrative? Why must you insist on unpleasantness?
Uh, because you live in reality?
No, because you enforced a boundary.
And that’s the sucky thing about having boundaries. You don’t control how other people react to them. When you didn’t reconcile with your serial-cheating then-wife after her last affair imploded, you had to let go of how that decision would be received by your kids and family members. When you insist on living in the reality of who this person is — someone who grievously harmed you and cannot be trusted — that’s going to ruffle some feathers.
I wish I could tell you that just being yourself is enough. That the EVIDENCE of your character matters, especially over time. But science (and a recent election) show us that people don’t give a flip about evidence. They care about how FWs make them feel. Go down the rabbit hole of confirmation bias. Learn how people’s beliefs are tied up with their identities, and how having to change their mind feels deeply personal and threatening.
Undoing impression management is an uphill battle.
For those on the sidelines of our personal drama, trying to figure out who’s really the Bad Guy is exhausting. And they don’t want to think of anyone as the bad guy — especially children with a FW parent. I counsel here to stay out of it and let children figure out those relationships for themselves. Maybe they must experience some kicks in the teeth to understand. Maybe they’ll get kicked in the teeth and remain unswervingly loyal to the FW. It’s awful to watch, but you only control yourself.
So let’s start there. This is what you can do when you feel tired of being the villain.
Let go of the rope.
Ignore her. I know it’s unfair, but bearing down on what a shitty person she is to counter her narrative that you’re the Real Villain here is rarely productive. Defensiveness is never a good look. Try agreement.
“Yes, I’m Satan.”
And then go back to whatever you were doing. If demonstrated character isn’t enough for someone (including the children you raised, or the parents who should love you more than a FW former in-law), go let them think stupid things.
Refuse to have an argument about it. That’s where chumps get tripped up. They get their stupid BUT you don’t have to agree with the stupid, or counter it.
Model sanity.
Your kids have no choice but to deal with their mother. Continue to be the sane parent and show up in meaningful ways. You said your older son knows the story, so don’t revisit it unless he brings it up and asks for your point of view. Meanwhile, remember your ACTIONS speak loudest. You don’t have your ex in your life for a reason. You reject her cruelty and chaos. Modeling sanity goes much further than any argument you can muster. Live in the truth.
Go be awesome.
Look, you’re not an inauthentic person who needs a PR campaign. But you can have joy. You can refuse to let FWs make you a bummer. Bitter has a hard time sticking when you’re out kicking ass and enjoying your life.
Sure, you can grieve in your quiet moments or with your close friend, or in this support community. But to everyone else, fuck what they think. You’re a terrible person? Okay, gossipy former acquaintance — keep your distance. And hope news of your latest triumph trickles back to them.
If I were you, I’d go book a fabulous vacation. And ask your mother to clean your house while you’re away.
I’m so sorry! I’m especially sorry that your oldest child is telling you to “forgive”, but then again… betrayal blindness and this is his mom. (I know from experience what absolutely weird shapes we twist ourselves into to refuse to see that our moms are abusive.)
Did you follow the story from May this year – the supposedly single mom crying on tiktok who claimed she was making her own birthday cake and went viral? And then her exhusband exposed her as not being involved that much with the kids, but definitely not a single mom and someone who had been convicted several times for financial fraud and stealing and had cheated on him? Yeah, I’m so glad his counter tiktoks (with the court docs!) worked, but holy cow, the initial fawning campaign that she received (incl. money although she wore an expensive Tiffany bracelet in that video!)… must have felt exactly like what you are feeling now. People are so invested in a world that does not exist…
I remember that one. I am so leery of anyone who sets up a camera to film themselves crying. And her story made no sense to me. She’s crying because she’s making cupcakes for her birthday? She expected her young children to do it instead? She thinks all married women have husbands who bake them cupcakes? Did she think he ex husband should have baked her cupcakes? I’m sorry, it’s a really normal thing to bake or buy your own birthday cake. I know social media shows us everyone is a spoiled princess who gets pampered on their birthday but that’s not reality for most adults. Especially adults who are raising young children. It’s not a traumatic event to cry over. That one bothered me so much. I wasn’t even slightly surprised to find out she was actually a deadbeat parent with a criminal record. She was acting like a con artist.
I had to check it out and it seems the plot is thickening to Jerry Springer levels. But whenever I think “Jerry Springer,” I take a step back from any temptation to rubberneck and think about things like sociopolitics, poverty, the ravages of child neglect and the worsening education system in the US. Not that any of it’s an excuse for grand theft and child neglect but I pity the poor kids in this situation because the whole thing looks like the tragic legacy of generations of dysfunction.
Elizabeth Techenbach is now accusing the optometrist ex of “severe abuse.” No way to know the facts without confirmation but both things can feasibly be true– shitty people can be abusive to other shitty people. Or the accusations of abuse aren’t true and she’s doing the old Cluster B splitting/smear thing. But one hint her ex isn’t a saint is she’s saying she got pregnant at age 15 or 16 and, unless the ex isn’t the biological father, he would have been fully an adult at the time and a kiddy groomer. She says she attempted suicide at 17 (after having a child?) and her parents did nothing to help. So she’s pregnant and living at home with parents as a teen and then gets married later.
In the mugshot and without the heavy makeup, hair pieces, fillers and video filters, she reminds me of people I’ve encountered who suffer from growth hormone deficiency from very poor diet or alcohol abuse in childhood or congenital fetal alcohol syndrome. Any of this can leave people with permanent cognitive and behavior issues but, again, no excuse and I pity the children involved.
To Hell of a Chump: The topic should be Tired of Being the Villain (although Elizabeth’s response shows how those smear campaigns work), but just quickly – Elizabeth Teckenbrock (she is active with her full name on tiktok and verified) was married to her exhusband in 2018. She is now (2024) 29 years old and he is 37 years old – meaning they were roughly 23 and 31 years old. According to several sources this was a shotgun wedding and she was pregnant with their first child. But she was 23, not 16! It is entirely possible that Andrew Cormier made a move on her when she was too young. (I had a guy in my class in high school who at age 19 had a 14 year old girlfriend. Yes, legal where I lived at the time. She is not scamming people today.) They can both, and you and me agree there, be rubbish. But he has not been convicted of any scams and she was not 16 when she had his first child, but 23. I know a woman who was raped by her father her entire childhood and her mother accused her of “seducing him”- she in no way is out there being convicted for elderly abuse and scams. I am surprised re: FAS, cause I don’t see that at all. To me she just looks like a hot skinny woman.
But let’s get back to Tired of Being the Villain, who can’t do all this back and forth we’re doing now all the time in real life (unless he is mega wealthy and can just hire a PR company like Baldoni did – but he was the real villain!).
Commenters digress all the time here on related themes.
Believe me, I’m not defending this individual. As I mentioned, looking up mitigating circumstances is just an exercise I put myself through whenever I find myself tempted to rubberneck over Jerry Springer type shitshows (i.e., usually circumstances involving generations of poverty).
It’s because, unlike punching up at the creepy, privileged criminals among the super rich and powerful, mocking the legacy of poverty (remember those “Walmartian” memes?) feels filthy to me. But it’s honestly not out of sympathy for adult offenders whose character issues are likely baked in but a way to steer my own thoughts towards forms of potential advocacy that might prevent the kind of child abuse and neglect that produces generation after generation of disordered people in the first place. That goes for abused rich kids as well but especially the poor.
And the fact is abuse and neglect can leave permanent marks on health and the marks on health may suggest cognitive issues as well. The mug shot isn’t filtered https://www.lavanguardia.com/cribeo/viral/20240528/9681475/hizo-viral-lacrimogena-historia-madre-soltera-ex-desvelado-oscuro-pasado-mmn.html
Other photos, especially the rather glum wedding pictures, show some potential skeletal problems that you see a lot with FAS but can also be from SAD– the aptly named hyper-processed Standard American Diet of packaged and junk food. Basic malnutrition at critical developmental stages (toddler and then teen) can also induce this. You can actually see it in the particular generation of Europeans born during WWII who show the telltale signs of childhood growth impairment– especially disproportionately short neck and limbs compared to head size, thin, dry hair, etc. Then these people went on to have well fed children who, no surprise, were about a foot or more taller than their parents and with normal proportions.
But hardly anyone really starves in the US, not in the old fashioned post war sense. Instead they consume a ton of calories with zero nutritional value and a lot of neurotoxic, immune-toxic, carcinogenic chemicals and hormone disruptors. It’s one of the reasons I also find it filthy to mock obesity because it’s mostly a disease of poverty. It’s because “food ghettos” in the US may have no grocery stores or access to fresh produce– only 7-11s, gas stations and fast food restaurants– so this effects a lot of children and can often have psychiatric ramifications. But the pharmaceutical industry makes so much money drugging the bejesus out of kids like this that studies on nutritional psychiatry don’t get a lot of funding (pharma is among the biggest donors to academic medical training institutions and research hospitals, also owns some of the most prominent medical journals) or press coverage (pharma is one of the biggest media sponsors, particularly of so called “progressive” media while right leaning outlets tend to take petro and arms industry dollars).
As for whether she was a teen mother, she says she had a baby at 16 in one of her post-crying-cupcake TikTok videos and other articles confirm it. In that video she doesn’t say who the father but other sources I’ve since seen on the web suggest you’re correct and the first two children were from a different father. In another video showing wedding photos she posts with “It Ends With Us” references (the film about abuse), four children can be seen a photo, the oldest a boy. It doesn’t appear that she has custody of any of them. https://www.tiktok.com/@morethanelizabeth/video/7404884468101582110
Anyway, I feel like I just stuck my head in the abyss of bleak Americana but, as a way to prevent pointless haterism, I always try to understand why people do the things they do even if it doesn’t inspire me to offer amnesty to harmful criminals.
In the mugshot what I see is acne or if I want to be very uncharitable: meth.
I don’t see all the rest. She’s just very pretty. Her two older kids are from her previous husband, Christopher Otto. Her parents look completely normal and not poor either, nice pool, nice garden, nice vacations etc: https://www.instagram.com/princessnicolet_/ (Christopher, the first husband is the guy with the loops here.) She currently has $4000 per month and previously stole over a million. This gives an extremely detailed overview if you wish to dive in further: https://sites.google.com/view/elizabethteckenbrockinfo/home
(But I’m over and out. Have to read more about the splitting you posted 😉
I get what you mean in general (and that’s one reason why I’m against capital punishment), but I think I have come to a point in my life in which I can say that unfortunately all those who have abused me, incl. sexually, did so because there were zero repercussions to fear for them, it reaffirmed their power and because it even paid for them to do so in other ways. That’s it.
It’s kind of a trope in the US that people can live as if they’re middle to upper middle class and yet don’t have enough money for food. I suppose some are just living above their means or others are– if not “new money”– sort of “newly living on credit.”
Yes, but you also just provided a textbook example of what CL wrote above re: human nature being to discard any evidence not fitting preconceived notions (the two links). 😉 What would I need to present you with to accept that she does not come from poverty? 😉 Her parents’ bank account?
A “textbook example”… do you mean confirmation bias? Please explain further which particular bias I’m trying to confirm because it’s not clear from what you wrote.
As you’ve said in the past, you’re not from the US and I have the feeling the idea of being raised with the trappings of wealth yet having a poverty-stricken upbringing might be a particularly gringo phenomenon. Take for example the autobiography of the daughter of kitschy interior design mogul Martha Stewart, Alexis Stewart. She actually physically starved for most of her childhood because no one was home to take care of her and there was never any food in the cupboards.
As someone who went to a private prep school on scholdarship, I can attest that Alexis Stewart’s story is not an isolate case in this country. Journalist Chris Hedges has often written about dire neglect of children among the rich and upper classes in the US as part of the insane lethal pursuit of appearances within a neoliberal capitalist system.
This needs a PS, cause I just looked it up and it was worse than what I remembered: he had sole custody (was in reality the single dad!) because of all of her frauds, she had visitation. One of her frauds had involved pretending to suffer from cancer to get money (she did not), but she also embezzled from workplaces. She then used that visitation to start that fraud attempt (the “crying single mom on her birthday” fraud) and then later due to that lost visitation. Her exhusband seems extremely solid in his videos. Just solid, stable and level-headed. She in contrast comes across (fakely!) as extremely vulnerable and is stunning. I can’t imagine what he must have felt like when he saw her using the visitation for further fraud – but I guess like what you are experiencing every day! I’m very sorry.
The sentence “could have been a cult leader” – I have used that to describe my last FW many times. In fact: in non-religious ways, your FW and mine are cult leaders. With themselves as (in their heads) invincible gods that others revolve around.
Back in the day my then-husband and I went to marriage counseling at my husband’s request. The counselor couldn’t figure out who was the real villain at first. So he had all of our kids come in and talk to him. He must have asked the right questions because he figured it out. And then the ex quit going to counseling. After seeing me alone for many, many sessions (and receiving lots and lots of $) the counselor finally told me that he thinks the ex has a personality disorder.
Anybody who can be a horrible person and convince your own family that YOU are the villain, probably has a personality disorder. I would not be surprised if a huge percentage of Social Media “Influencers” have personality disorders. These people are awful and there is nothing you can do about it. I’m sorry you had children with one of them. Me, too. It sucks.
It might be worth exploring legal avenues to get her to stop talking about you publicly. It’s insane that several years after your marriage ended, her followers are stalking you.
I second exploring the legal route to stop the smears. Defamation and libel can have serious consequences.
Solid advice here. You have to play the end game. When your mom & kids are no longer useful or start to see through the manipulation the ex will drop them like a hot potato. In my case, Schmoopie is the charming manipulator. My ex is so stupid being lead around by the nose, but that’s his choice. He told my kids he feels “manly” rescuing OW. So CL is right, it’s how they make them feel. Try using some of that charm too just in a more authentic way with your mom, etc. I do and I think it takes away some of that glitter from the charming cheaters, so it dilutes their power. Bring your own sparkle & razzle dazzle!
How the Cheater FEELS about interaction with us vs Schmoops: My Cheater was hypercritical about everything. He could fault in everything I did which caused me to try harder and get it right next time. I ended up becoming really good at a lot of things which then simply upped the game…he felt MORE inept as I tackled bigger and bigger tasks (like the super duper DIY chicks you see on social media but my experience predated it).
When he started up with Schmoopie, he said he was mentoring her and she needed him…he felt capable and intelligent. I bet money that she faked a lot of her incapacity. He told me that I “tried to make him feel bad about himself” when I was actually trying to hold a boundary that he act like a civil human and not verbally abuse me.
“He told me that I ‘tried to make him feel bad about himself’ when I was actually trying to hold a boundary”–I had the same experience! At one point in the horrible post-separation months, it came to me: “Oh, I get it: whenever I set a boundary–just a normal boundary, such as telling him I don’t want him coming into the house unannounced!–he interprets it as an insult and responds with aggression.” I am glad I’m now far away from him!
This post is timely for me as I’m made out to be the bad guy all the time. Just this morning my mother asked me why I didn’t let my cheating ex sleep over at my house. We’ve been divorced for over a year yet my mom is still shocked (and upset) that I have boundaries. Keep being happy with your life and ignore the people who want you to go back to being someone’s whipping boy.
“Are you kidding, Mom? We’re divorced. And this is the last time you and I are going to talk about him.”
She’s been told that many times but doesn’t listen. That’s why she’s on an info diet. Some parents don’t want to hear reality and only want things to follow their fantasy which makes them look good. She’s obsessed with “saving” my ex from himself, and gets angry when I don’t enable her to pull off her mock Hallmark movie schemes. She has no idea the amount of damage she does and thinks it’s fine to say, “I pray for (Cheating ex) every night. I don’t pray for you though, you’re fine.” That’s the type of parent I’m working with and have distanced myself from.
Did your ex actually call your mom in order to whine about this? That’s definitely a personality disorder thing but I’ve noticed that it’s most “effective” when people capable of violence (whether they’ve committed it yet or not) or dangerous in some other serious way triangulate like this in order to pick off their victim’s potential support system. The more dangerous they are= the better they are at drafting flying monkeys. If the people the disordered individual is trying to cultivate have any kind of unresolved past trauma, they may go into an instant “boxer’s clinch” with the abuser as a subconscious way of groveling for amnesty.
In other words, it’s not so much the sparkly “charm” that works to draw in flying monkeys but the dangerousness. Maybe it’s a combination of the two things that makes weak-minded people curl up into furry, grateful balls at the feet of perpetrators because “Thank God this individual is being nice to me because I sense their bad side is absolute hell.”
As Albert Einstein once said and I quote “Weak people seek revenge, strong people forgive and intelligent people ignore – never care what other people think about you, life is not a popularity contest. People that know you get it and thats all that matters. Kids do figure it out in the end. I wish you well.
This is so true. I divorced 10 years ago and I went no contact only texting for kid’s issues. XW went mad because I don’t care a bit about her. But she retaliates with a carefully crafted smear campaign. She goes to great lengths developing situations to show that I am a bad father. Never entered into her game. Her friends and family think I am the worst but I don’t care. But then how come my daughter always wants to be with me to enjoy things together? Surely buy slowly karma is getting her and her family…
The people who once mattered the most may never figure it out. The sorrow and pain of being lied about and children, family members can’t sus it out, is all too true. I’m getting accustomed to being outside a circle I no longer fit in. It breaks 💔 my heart but it is my new life. The crowds are gone who liked couplehood and big houses, lots of presents and gatherings where we all shared some values. It is what it is and I find strength for each day from my Creator who always has loved me. I am not alone. You are all with me too.
Oh, I’m so sorry. I went through this too. The hardest one was my sister. She point blank told me “You have to understand, I’ve known him 20 years too.” and “if my best friend told me these things about her husband, I wouldn’t believe her either.”
It was so hard to start over while losing everything and everyone. My son was nice about it but he didn’t believe me either. My ex was telling me how much he wanted to kill me and one of my “friends” joked to me that she and her husband had considered coming over and taking MY guns based on things my ex told them. So, he wanted to murder me and our “friends” were going to disarm me for him. Because somehow I’m the violent one. That one still really deeply disturbs me anytime I think about it.
But my ex is just like yours. The charisma and funny, and able to get away with things. Mine is also a pedophile though and when he was caught for that, A FEW people finally saw what he really is. Not all of them though. Not even that is enough to counteract how people pathetically react to these con artists. It’s so bizarre to watch it in action. Basic logic and reason just never enters the room.
It’s funny, when we met we were in the Army. I thought it was pathetic how some girls would act around him and he used to say he liked me because his bullshit didn’t work on me. That’s probably why he targeted me. I guess I was a challenge. These psychos get bored easy because their lives and internal thoughts are so pathetic and fake.
Your kids will probably come around when she screws them over. And she probably will. These type of people will use their own children too. Eventually, they will probably see it and have a whole new perspective of what you were going through. It may take years though and I’m sorry because I know that’s painful.
Absolute WTF to your sister and ex-friends, holy shit.
I am constantly baffled by the number of people who defend abusers and even participate in abusing their victims. I’ve noticed it’s not rare at all and in fact seems to be the norm. Scratch a disordered person and you’ll find followers who are just as self-absorbed and character deficient as they are, and the latter are happy to do their dirty work for some reason.
I don’t get it. A shocking amount of people are stupid and lack moral fiber.
Ah, he was a big game hunter. DV expert and researcher Lenore Walker figured out it was myth that all abusers target only the weak. Just like hunters vary in taste for trophies, some prefer bunny foot key chains and others prefer tiger skin rugs. Though even big game hunters like shortcuts so some will target “temporarily limping tigers” as we used to call it in advocacy: a strong person who, due to some situational misfortune or other, was uncharacteristically susceptible for a time.
TOBTV– Are you trying to steal my crown as Numero Uno Queen Villain?? Seriously, I thought I was the villain. And I have special powers. By, say, asking men to remove sharp tools from kids’ play areas, actually run the dishwasher when it’s their turn to do dishes, put dirty socks inside the hamper, etc., I can make perfectly wonderful men whom I’m told “everyone thinks is nice” drink bourbon at work at 11am, turn into Jack Nicholson from The Shining (sans axe fortunately) in front of the kids and transvect them out of their pants and into the Ikea beds of dumpy barfly coworkers!! So great is my power that, merely by refusing to watch reality TV shows like Survivor, I can levitate kids’ college funds out of bank accounts to pay the epic bar tabs of said barflies! So great is my magical, mystical bitchery that I make dads of minor children risk cancelling life insurance by driving drunk on freeways! Bow down before me, mere mortal!
Kidding aside, I think you’ll find you have a lot of stiff competition among fellow chumps here for top villain due to the fact cheating is a form of abuse and because all domestic abusers do this to their victims. If it rings any bells, here’s the Wikipedia article on something called “splitting” on the tendency of individuals with Cluster B personality disorders to shift back and forth between idealizing and demonizing other people, fabricating wild accusations and engaging in triangulating smear campaigns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
With people with Cluster B personality disorders, this often involves the embellishment or invention of grievances that garner an emotional response from those around them that they feel matches their own distress at the situation. The more valuable the social bond they are trying to preserve or the higher their general need for social acceptance, the higher the probability that they engage in psychologically abusive behaviour. This can cause intense psychological distress in the person they are devaluing and can be met by legal challenges of abuse or slander.
It case attributing the smear tactics to personality disorder sounds like a bid for sympathy for sad sausage abusers, bear in mind the behavior is also attributed to several categories of serial criminal including child rapists, domestic batterers and serial killers. It’s apparently part of something called “neutralization” in forensic psychology, a learned behavior (presumably picked up within dysfunctional families of origin) whereby offenders retroactively and proactively “neutralize” the stigma for offenses using a series of cognitive tricks to shift blame such as denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, appeal to higher loyalties, and condemnation of the condemners: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/46
I would also recommend the book Framed by Dr. Christine Cocciola who was a guest on CL’s podcast and is one of the spearheads to legislate against coercive control and the weaponization of children by abusers and is also a former chump. The book describes how coercively controlling abusers will campaign to alienate children and weaponize the court system.
Fortunately, your awful ex doesn’t appear to be fighting for full custody as a means of punishing you and you appear to be past that particular stage of post-separation abuse. But because you’re still being subjected to parental alienation, you might draw a sense of consensus from the book. If the smears feel unsettling, it’s no wonder because behavior like this can often lead to Dickensian-level social ruin for some– probably all the more of a risk in an era when modern social safety nets are being withdrawn.
Even if lies on this level don’t lead to the worst outcomes, there is a kind of shattering trauma in “near miss” experiences. For example, it’s no joke that your in-laws were– at least for a period– accusing you of felony stalking and terrorist threats and it may only have been some stroke of luck that the situation didn’t get out of hand and lead to you, say, being wrongfully shot in a SWAT attack or your children being harmed in the process. Because of real risks or even just the “near miss” element, I think there’s a good reason “bearing false witness” is forbidden in the Ten Commandments. I wasn’t raised religious but certain things in the bible endure because they’re solid common sense. I think we all sense on some lizard brain level that this kind of reputational abuse can potentially lead to disaster, probably going back to our caveman days where being driven out of the social fold by wrongful gossip could lead to certain death.
I’ve learned that the more casually familiar we become with the issues surrounding abuse and the more succinct we become in rattling off these compelling facts in the case the subject comes up, the more influential we can become to others around us as we build a solid, ride or die network of social support among people who believe in us and are thoroughly immune to being swayed by character assassination. Eventually children– even those who are being subjected to the lies– will feel that gravitational social pull of credibility around you and the confidence this gives you.
In any case, you’re not alone and I hope knowing this helps in some way.
You have no idea how some of the linked stuff helped me! On the “slander” court cases: in my neck of the woods it’s unfortunately almost exclusively used to silence sexual abuse victims.
I learned from the film Denial that, in the UK, the burden of proof in slander cases is on the accuse. The film is about a US Holocaust scholar sued for slander by a British neonazi and one of the first things I thought when I saw it was that the burden being on accusers has to completely suck for survivors of dv, sexual assault and harassment who simply try to tell their stories.
I think there’s a very strong anti-victim blaming “It wasn’t you, it was them” message in learning some of the nitty gritty about criminal MOs and the diabolical lengths many go to to fool others and even themselves. Consequently, I think the nitty gritty also addresses some of the undeserved shame survivors feel over getting entrapped in the first place, partly because Stockholm syndrome actually only works to promote survival to the degree the individual can’t perceive they’re in a state of captor bonding (I think of it as a kind of “survival anosognosia”) and partly because abusers deliberately sow chaos and blinding confusion. It can take years for the smoke to clear so that survivors can look back and really identify each of the risks they were up against, each viable threat that was conveyed to them and the pragmatic obstacles to escape so that they can let themselves off the hook for not casually leaving sooner.
You made a reference to Prof. Jennifer Freyd’s book, Blind to Betrayal which I really appreciate because she probably knows more than most how there’s almost an algorithm to the factors that can make each individual vulnerable to entrapment and more “coercible.”
OP, I am outraged that your mom is not firmly and vehemently on YOUR SIDE!!!!
MOM?!! WTF!!
I realize everyone has their own unique relationships with their parents. But if you can’t tell your mom how she is really hurting you by being friendly with the cheating ex, who can you tell? Also, the kids know about the cheating ex, but still see you as the villain? That does not make sense to me!! Have you told them that cheating is a betrayal of the most intimate kind? It risks your physical, mental, emotional and financial health. Even a teenager would understand that. I am sorry that you are going through this BS!!! It would make me feel crazy and I would not be able to shut up about it. Suffering in silence is so NOT my motto.
For context, once I realized what STBX was up to, it took me a good while to take action, but I finally did and asked him to GTFO and called a lawyer. Initially my kids were mad at me. (WHAT???) But now, 2 years later, they see him for the low-effort secretive pity-loving covert narc passive-agressive lump that he is. I do not have any sort of friendly banter with him or anyone from his camp. I told my kids: I would rather live in a cardboard box and eat cup o’noodles every day than to sit at a dinner table with him and pretend he is my friend. He is not my friend. He actively gas-lighted and shamed me for decades, so screw him.
I am moving into my own apartment and only the people I trust are allowed to come with me into my new life. Hoping everyone here has a better 2025! Free of liars, con-men/women, poor-me pity-partyers, and assorted dum-dums that basically amount to being parasitic hosts on our lives.
Absolutely! OPs mom sounds like a complete FW, too. Who does that to their own child?? I can see why OP picked a betrayer just like his own mother who normalized having ZERO loyalty but acts fake nice. Geez.
I guess we’re the hosts and they are the parasites. I realize how drastic this sounds. But I stand by it. To live a lie for 30 years and then just walk away like it was a misunderstanding, what other words are there for that?
While I generally read here with reflections applied to my marriage to my Cheater, this all applies to me but more in reference to how NowHusband is treated by his XW. Although not perfect, he is a really good guy who treats people well. He has a shrew of a sister who he chooses to be gracious to for reasons I dont even understand.
His XW left him for greener grass decades ago when their daughter was a toddler. She learned the grass out there wasn’t as green as she thought and after a long, acrimonious divorce, she sought remarriage…which he declined.
She has managed to create a narrative where I am partially responsible for their break up even though I had no contact with him the entirety of his courtship, marriage, divorce and 12 years after.
His daughter has been manipulated and emotionally blackmailed by her mom on numerous topics, but is still choosing to assume her mom has noble motives. (Very much conflrmation bias discussed above).
I know you would all advise me to ignore and walk away but there have been moments where the XW engineered a circumstance where she suggested that daughter do something manipulative that tricked my spouse to pay for something which would piss me off and set a fire of dispute in our home. I need to be very careful how I respond to any of her trickery lest I end up looking like the villain.
As far as personality disorders go, I would bet most of the perps in our stories are genuinely disordered. I understand that there are people who have civil breakups, but that isnt true for the folk we have all been witness to .
“She has managed to create a narrative where I am partially responsible for their break up even though I had no contact with him the entirety of his courtship, marriage, divorce and 12 years after.” OMG, so cool – I’ve never met a time traveller before! 😉
You cannot convince anyone of your truth. You can only live it.
Your character outweighs any lies told about you. It does not control what other people think.
If I work on keeping my side of the street clean, and if I can look at my side of the street and see that it is clean, it helps me tolerate what other people think. Keeping your side of the street clean reinforces your position as the wronged party. Do not do anything that would jeopardize your integrity and credibility.
Children are in the absolute worst position of all those affected by infidelity. The finessing of that situation would go over the heads of most reasonably emotionally healthy adults. The involved children deserve superhuman amounts of grace and patience. IMHO
The effects on children fuels my undiluted extra-strength commercial grade abject hatred of cheaters. 😪
Silence and integrity is much more powerful than many people realize.
❤️
….and remember, just because someone calls you a zebra doesn’t mean you’re a zebra….
I did end up ending my relationship with my mother who never stood up for me. Funny how I married someone who did not stand up for me either.
The peeling of the onion layers continues….
when the X wanted to talk about “what we were going to say to people about our divorce–that we drifted apart” i responded with, “uh, no. i will say that we’re dealing with alcoholism in our family” and he fucking lost it.
he started saying, “well, i’m worried about your mental health” which we all know is code for “i’m going to tell everyone you’re fucking crazy” etc. etc. i just shrugged and told him not to worry about my mental health, that i’m responsible for my mental health and take care of it in a variety of ways.
i could hear his narcissistic gears grinding.
i lost all our couple friends in the divorce, as it often goes, and so i cannot say with certainty that he’s called me crazy all over town, but i don’t really care TBH. i mean, between his drinking and narcissism, i was irritable and unreasonable, and now i’m not. life is SO MUCH BETTER.
as for family, both my kids have occasionally said something about “moving on” and “don’t be bitter”, and i calmly respond with the facts. they have stopped saying anything like that lately, and their contact with their dad is minimal and superficial, so i think they understand his shallow and cruel nature. my daughter said she talks with more depth to her dentist than she does to her dad, if that’s any indication.
my social life is small and meaningful, and i’ve tried to excise the social narc’s from my life. it’s a whole thing, given my writing life. writers are both weird and skew towards narcissistic behaviours. my writing social life is also small and meaningful.
i’m a lot calmer than i have been in past years, and feel good about this fact. therapy continues, although not as frequently, and i’m figuring out a key factor in my childhood, having recently discovered a childhood memory of mine that i filed under “the vacuum” needed re-filing into “sexual assault + sexual abuse”. i’m not at all happy about this and shocked, too. but i’m also strangely relieved to understand this about myself.
so many things in my life now make sense.
anyway, i have much work to do on this, and that’s my focus. not the X. and i don’t really have time to worry about what others think of me, because i’ve got lotsa work to do. time marches on.
#Xusedtomarkthespotbutnowitsoutoutdamnspot
Have you talked with your mom about her relationship with cheater? I wonder if she is trying to control cheater influence over grandchildren? I’d be talking this one over with my excellent trusted therapist, on my own and with mom.
Cheaters and side pieces, in their self-centered oblivion, insisting that their behavior is all about love and no one’s business, ironically create colossal complications for every single dadgum attached relationship of any kind in all directions until kingdom come. The loyalty issues caused are off the charts, impossible enigmatic puzzles that cannot be solved. They can’t contain their suffering from relationship idiocy; they have to inflict it on every single individual surrounding them.
Tired of Being a Villain,
Completely compartmentalizing my own experience as a chump for a second here:
This “person” decided to paint YOU as the villain. Ok, fine. Stupid people
do that.
Again, for
the purposes of this examination here-here is what stuck out for me, free from
judgement that she betrayed you: she left YOU with the kids and ran off. “This person is SO TERRIBLE that I left two defenseless living beings in his care!” No Child
Protective Services activations against you or anything-this was something that
she was perfectly comfortable with. I am not seeing “and then after her
weekend ski resort retreat at minimal safe distance she came, collected HER
children from “the villain” and then made a heartfelt, unfocused rant
on her TikTok about making adult choices for the safety of her children”.
So…um…anybody that buys her narrative (even before getting your side of the story) is not worth your time or energy.
Let me put my therapist hat back on and correlate the contents of all of this and reframe
what she did free of romance and presenting the objective reality of what shedid and reframe:
She cheated on you, ran, and left her children to die.
I am not you, but I would personally not be OK with anybody with anybody outside of your immediate household (which it sounds like you run very well, given that you, a villain in the eyes of the court, are permitted custody of your very alive and well children. You did not hunt your fuckwit down and murder her or raise a hand to her or any other living being.
You handled YOUR business, cleaned up HER mess, and continue to do so!
Objectively, YOU ARE NOT THE VILLAIN.
If anybody believes otherwise, as far as I am concerned they are complicit in HER villainy and you will need to deal with them accordingly. Personally, anybody that’s down with that level of abuse is not down with me. My own mother was seemingly OK with me getting chumped and it has gotten back to me that she has been sympathetic to my personal fuckwit. I do not speak with her and will not until I get a handwritten apology note(in cursive). There are others that I no longer break bread with on the same plan.
As for your children-from the sounds of things, your oldest “gets it” as much as they can (though there is some life experience they will benefit from coming up as they start down Love’s path-my empathy did not completely maximize until it happened to me as well-part of growth, I suppose). Your youngest has a very uncomfortable 3am conversation in their future concerning all of this. Your fuckwit made the decision that would happen when she betrayed you-that is part of this whole “natural consequences” thing.
I remember when my mother cheated on my father and when that conversation came. My father was calm and reasonable, if hurt, and was ready to answer my questions. My mother screamed at me when I asked for her side of the story and threatened to disown me when I went to confirm his story. Guess which parent I spent Christmas with yesterday?
As others have said-be steadfast and be yourself. Anybody that you alienated by being victimized is really not worth your time or energy if they aren’t willing to see your side of the story(let alone the objective reality that you were abused and betrayed).
When my fuckwit moved out, I am pretty sure she told the landlord some sob story about my being abusive and “needing to escape”…down the hill…to within walking distance I was so vile and dangerous. Or something. I got the side-eye for about 2 months when turning my rent check in but have continued to be calm and reasonable (I even dropped off her mail with them to hand off to her) and am brightly greeted when they see me now(my guess is that idiot also pissed them off when she moved into another unit on the property and presumably broke the lease-they saw that she was the problem when she could no longer blame me for her problems-the magic of No Contact!)
I’m glad that she has a social media following and that she is so charismatic and funny and things. She should have no difficulties with finding somebody else to buy her bull story about why she mysteriously does not have to take care of her kids(again, if her narrative is to be believed she left them to die).
As for forgiveness? I think your oldest has the right of it-you will need to “get over this”. And by that I mean MOVE ON. Grow. Live. BE! Do what you have been doing! Role model for the children that YOU pieced back together when their mother couldn’t be bothered to due to her own grandiosity and show them how to assert boundaries! Teach them that abuse is an unprovoked, targeted act and how very lonely those people end up.
As a quick aside-in my own healing journey since my D-Day and my own fuckwit’s “taking her ball and going home”, I’ve made considerable headway into exploring the nature of “entitlement” and its role in infidelity. I recently made the discovery that the word “deserve” is often coupled with entitlement as it pertains to fuckwittery and ramifications therein. I think today after reading this I am now also correlating “forgiveness” with that as well. She chose to betray you. You chose to leave. I will not be convinced that you are any less of a person for locking the door that she slammed in your face.
Happy Boxing Day, Chump Nation! We all made it through another Christmas(Or should I say, ChristMIGHTY!)
One of my favorite Christmas presents is this post, Jeff. Let me take a moment to thank you at group level for your contributions and declare my love for what you share here. So glad you’re in the Chump Nation lifeboat!
Thanks, that means a lot (kinda needed that today!)
I got into human services and walk the healer’s path (some might even call it the Path of Heaven) with the simple, laughable goal of making sure that other people get down the road better than I did.
I made that decision when I was 14, started officially 18 years ago now, and it is how I will spend my life.
My fuckwit, bless her, told me she cheated because I was hopeless. So as much as I can, it is my wish to give hope. Because it DOES get better! She failed to kill me on D-Day. And to the opposing side she sent somebody trained in trauma informed care and skilled and versed in the cognitions of personality disorders and delusions. Not her best tactical move (but then again, she was never that bright to begin with.)
Trauma creates an indelible bond. Anybody that has been betrayed by one that they loved shares that bond with me. So as long as you will all have me, here I am.
Dear TOBTV,
Wow, I feel for you, dealing with your ex’s current campaign against you. I hope (and assume) that for many people, her true colors will be visible in time.
In the meantime, I want to emphatically second Tracy’s recommendation (echoed by others) that you resist the temptation to share with the kids your feelings of displeasure with your ex, even in the subtlest way. You comment that “My oldest . . . refuses to spend a lot of time with me as he says I ‘needed to get over it.’” Forgive me for saying this, but this kind of message from an adult child isnusually an indication that the parent is doing too much sharing about the ex, and that the parent’s anger or disgust is bleeding through and weighing on his child. Your son is letting you know that he really doesn’t want to hear what you think about his mother anymore. I think the best course is simply to avoid, as much as is humanly possible, ANY discussion of your ex with the kids. (And if that advice sounds reasonable to you, you might also let your older son know that you’ve absorbed his message and will try mightily to keep the topic of your ex out of your conversations with him. That might mean a lot to him.)
I know it’s really hard to maintain this kind of silence when someone is actively smearing you, and it must be triply hard with an ex who is charismatic and persuasive! But I think it’s the only way to go.
I wish you well, and hope that in time your ex tires of her smear campaign. She sounds so awful!
Disagree. The ex could be telling the kid that, as they often do. “Dad needs to get over it.” The LW isn’t the one who is making mistakes here, and he’s handled everything beautifully. Only each person knows the inside of their situation, so it’s up to him how silent he wants to be.
You make a good point–that the message “Dad needs to get over it” could be originating with the ex, and just traveling via the son.
So I guess it’s up to the LW, or anyone else whose adult child avoids him or her on the grounds that the parent is unable to “get over it,” to check in with himself or herself and ask, “Well, am I conveying to my child my ongoing disgruntlement with my ex, or not?” And if the answer is “not,” no change needs to me made.
Living in your own truth is rough, but it’s ultimately the best place.
My whole situation just got more and more bizarre until I decided that I was going to refuse reconciliation forever. We had been apart in separate states for a year while his mental health was going further and further downhill, and he was stoking his secret sexual basement. His fury and lies were wearing on me.
At first, he had played the victim card with his very religious family. I was a mental case that he had to flee. I was unforgiving. He said that our church leadership and our therapist controlled my thinking to believe that the marriage was over. Oh, and I was dangerous, too. When the situation fizzled with his family, they decided that he had to reconcile at all costs, being the head of the family. One sibling said that the answer was to have us start over in a new place. I told his family that I was disengaging.
I didn’t trust anything being said by then and began asking about attorneys and reading blogs. And then, yes, he wanted a divorce. I had to agree. He said it would be quick and easy because he was still “in love.” I didn’t believe that. He sold it to his family as a “righteous” divorce from a “rebel wife.” He told his attorney that I was a nutjob that he had to get away from and look out for because I would never make it without him.
The divorce was a mess, but his attorney figured out the truth and turned on his client in some ways. We got it settled and weathered more mess in closeout. Eventually, my ex found “true love,” or so I was told. We haven’t heard from him in awhile now.
My truth was that he was what my twenty-something kids call “a dumpster fire of epic proportions.” I was NOT a villain; the answer was to get away from him. And I did.
They’re all the damn same. Seriously. My exFW has been slowly but surely changing his very remorseful story. In the beginning he was the ideal FW. He owned up to everything. He never blamed me. He went to therapy. He joined support groups. He apologized to me and the kids. He took 100% of the blame for his decades of cheating. Then, over time, I have become the villain in his story. Now he is telling people that I “screamed at him and called him a fucking idiot” for our entire marriage. Not at all true. At one point he told people that I “threatened him with physical violence”. I absolutely did not. I don’t know how I went from the blameless victim to this horrible shrew who screamed at him, swore at him, and threatened him, but I did. He can’t stand being the villain in his own story so he’s rewriting it. They all do it.
My Dad (May he rest in peace) always said “When someone is gossiping about YOU they’re giving someone else a break. Pat yourself on the back for helping out someone else.”
Sorry that this happened to you but it is jus another shit sandwich he cheaters love to serve. I know it can bother you but don’t argue the narrative. That just gives her space in your head. You goal is not to let anything she says or does bother you. Stay with your tribe and those who know you and accept you for what you are.
Trust me, FWs will give up when their actions don’t get a reaction!
Oddly enough this holiday season is the first I did not get my usual “you are Horrible and You Suck” Christmas greeting from my ex!! I expected it because he was consistent in sending me that particular form of holiday cheer. My friends actually expected me to have the annual wine drinking and snacks as we read through his lengthy diatribe in regard to my awfulness!!! Alas, we just drank wine and had a cute charcuterie board this year.
As CL advises just ignore them or if you are feeling magnanimous, agree with them. They say: You suck and are horrible” and you respond “yes, I am horrible” and move right about your business.
You can do this!!!!! Stay Strong!!!!
This was my letter. Thank you all for the nice comments, I was busy at work all day and didn’t realize it was up here until now!
I love the image of Darth Vader. That is exactly how I often feel I look like to the world.
You have to just accept your villain badge in the end and go for broke.
You’ll get called everything and be accused of doing all sorts of things.
The kids will be told lies about you the same as everyone else will which is easily the hardest thing.
Kids don’t understand- even grown adults don’t get it .
To both of my losers, I am both the villain and crazy- I personally think Evil Genius would make a better T shirt.
They label us because we refuse to accept their bullshit and prefer to deal in reality rather than making up whatever suits on the given day.
As soon as they know we’re on to them, it’s the old discard for us. They’ve sucked all the value out of us and we are no longer of use.
In short, we’re villains because we ratted them out.
Your mom is on the side of your abuser. Hire and fire accordingly.
No wonder your kids are having a hard time seeing their own mother accurately.
I came back to add some additional thoughts after re-reading the letter. The social media bit really got to me. My FW had some weirdness on his social media, which is what led me to checking my phone records etc.
Yes, and just to clarify something I said earlier: when I said the LW should not share with the kids his disgruntlement with his ex, I meant that he shouldn’t let his *anger* or *disgust* bleed into the conversation. But that said, I agree with you that “it’s ok to say: my reality is not the same as mom’s. That’s not trash talking her. That’s just stating a fact.” In my view it becomes trash-talking, or anyway too fraught, when one says, further, “your mom is a liar” or “can’t you see that she’s manipulating people?” Similarly, in my view–but I can see that people differ on this–it’s best, as a rule, not to bring up what the mom is doing UNLESS the kid brings it up himself.
Here’s what you can do–“forgive” your ex in real sense of getting to Meh where what she says and does matters not one bit to you. It’s hard if you’re raising kids. But I would practice never, ever talking about this woman to your kids or your relatives. If they bring her up, lean on “Cool. Bummer. Wow” or “That’s an interesting perspective” or (try this one) “I’m glad you love your mother.” In a way, your goal is to get to the place where your present happiness is what people see. Put the ex in the rear-view mirror.
As for your mother, take a long look at her because I suspect she is one of the reasons your picker didn’t function very well when you got involved with your ex. What she does is far less excusable.