UBT: Coldplay Cheaters in the WSJ
The Coldplay cheaters get an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and the Universal Bullshit Translator is here to eviscerate the nonsense that the Schmoopies deserve credit for both being middle-aged.
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An alert chump sent me this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal: The One Thing No One Seems to Be Talking About With That Coldplay Couple: Their Ages by Yael Kohen. A woman with all the moral insight God gave dryer lint.
Yes, we need to confer a bitch cookie because the cheaters in question were “two age-appropriate adults doing the wrong thing together.”
Apparently, this is the new standard. If you’re not Jeffrey Epstein, sex-trafficking teenagers, does it even count? The Schoompies are AARP-age. How refreshingly modern!
The UBT is balking.
Didn’t I just choke down a domestic abuser promising “I will always love you“? Now I get THIS crap as a chaser?
Yes. Be a good machine and you’ll get a cookie.
Sigh.
The Coldplay cheaters are old! Huzzah!
A lot has been said about the Astronomer CEO who was caught at a Coldplay concert embracing a woman who was not his wife. But there’s one detail in the kiss-cam kerfuffle that’s gone largely unmentioned: their ages.
Andy Byron is 50, according to public records; Kristin Cabot is 52.
Andy Byron may be having a workplace affair with a subordinate and conspiring against his wife, but at least he’s not dating his daughter.
As a tech bro, he could have much younger snatch — like an intern! — but he went with the wizened, perimenopausal Cabot. Younger women are much more high value, but he graced his attention upon an older woman! #progress #InternalizedMisogynyMuch
Getting caught isn’t a good thing.
Nobody would say that getting publicly caught on camera having an affair is a good thing.
Damn the cameras.
Byron has a wife and family and is now out of work.
But it was all worth it to feel up flaccid 52-year-old breasts.
Cabot is a human-resources executive, a job that typically involves preventing these kinds of workplace flings from happening. She, too, is now out of a job.
Oh the pathos! We have applied the rules to the rule breakers.
(In a text message with a number associated with Byron, the former CEO disputed his personal details but declined to elaborate. Cabot couldn’t be reached for comment.)
Cabot was too busy perusing the help wanted ads looking for an executive position as a 52-year-old woman infamous for fucking her boss. #CallMe
But as public displays of infidelity go, the image of this couple has an upside—especially for women over 45 like myself.
Do you aspire to be a sidepiece, Yael Kohen?
Affairs are inescapable
Affairs may be an inescapable feature of monogamy, but at least this country-captivating dalliance featured two age-appropriate adults doing the wrong thing together.
Embezzlement may be an inescapable feature of pension investing, but at least Bernie Madoff was over 60.
Kitten drowning may be an inescapable feature of pet ownership, but at least those arrested for animal cruelty had color-coordinated outfits.
Drugging your wife for sexual assault may be an inescapable feature of marriage, but at least this country-captivating crime featured friendly neighbors doing the wrong thing together.
There will always be older men with a thing for younger women (we’re looking at you Bill Belichick), but the Byron and Cabot affair feels more interesting and more modern: the middle-aged man getting into trouble with a middle-aged woman.
If you’re going to have an affair, be interesting. Really, why stop at old women? Screw a goat. It’s more modern. A middle-aged man getting into trouble with a goat.
Be like Bezos
Jeff Bezos was 55 when rumors started swirling that he was in an extramarital relationship with Lauren Sanchez, then 49. (They are now married.) “He could have married a 25 year old super model and yet he didn’t,” wrote one commenter on a TikTok video of the couple getting down in Cannes. “I respect that.”
He could pay his workers a living wage, yet he didn’t. “I respect that,” said fellow oligarch.
Jeff Bezos is an honorable man because he could actually be worse. He could’ve married a much younger silicon-injected spousal appliance, but he didn’t. Silicon technology has come a long way, and Jeff is a disruptor.
Jeff Zucker’s CNN career imploded after revelations that he was in a relationship with co-worker Allison Gollust, when he was 56 and she 49. (They were both single at the time and are still together.) “Good Morning America” co-hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes blew up the morning show in 2022 once news of their affair went public, when she was 49 and he 45. (Robach and Holmes were both separated at the time, they have said. Now they have a podcast together.)
Get shit-canned for a workplace affair and you too could have a mediocre podcast. #goals
FWs want peers.
These newsmaking trysts offer a rare but public reminder that, despite various caricatures and misdeeds, plenty of rich and powerful men who can presumably have whatever they want actually desire women who are close in age. Therapists say that affairs between peers are actually fairly common.
Water rises to its own level, turds float to the top, and all that.
“Women are still hot, women are more sexually empowered than they’ve ever been, we’ve stayed better looking into middle age than we ever have,” says sex and relationship therapist Tammy Nelson, whose books on infidelity include “When You’re the One Who Cheats.”
Need a sound bite on why affairs are cool, and Esther Perel isn’t taking your calls? Try diploma mill quack and Esther wannabe Tammy Nelson.
“We are more emotionally empowered as well so we know how to connect,” Nelson adds. “I’m pretty sure when men have affairs there is a tendency to look for an emotional connection.”
Yes, men buy hookers for the emotional connection. That stripper loves him for HIM. When that boss sleeps with his secretary, it’s not the power differential that turns him on, it’s the emotional connection. His wife appliance doesn’t understand him.
Women, of course, are more emotionally empowered. Because we’re a monolith. And Tammy speaks for all hot women over 45.
The Coldplay cheaters are a refreshing break!
Whatever the reason, the image of these alpha dogs with women their own age is a refreshing break from the stereotype of older men grappling with the crisis of their mortality by trading in their aging wives and cars for faster, hotter models with better curves (we’re still looking at you Belichick).
When you find your husband’s double life revealed on a giant Jumbotron, take comfort that he didn’t trade you in for a younger model, or vintage TransAm. No, he’s been fucking the 52-year-old head of Human Resources. And that’s progress. You’re not pick-me dancing for hotter and faster. No, he threw away your family for a woman with vaginal atrophy and chin hair. #refreshing
Byron and Cabot no doubt feel as though there is a scarlet letter on their backs. There’s also the pain and embarrassment they likely caused their families, who now have to pick up the pieces. As a married woman, I do not envy any of them that.
As a married woman, Yael Kohen, does not envy chumps. She just wishes to comfort them during this time of profound embarrassment and STD screenings. There’s the pain of costly divorces and therapy bills for the children, but thank God for the balm of age-appropriateness.
But in our polarized country, we got a moment of viral schadenfreude that everyone could rally around. This was not a nightmarish story of exploitation. It was vanilla—the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift of illicit relationships. It was the comic relief of human folly, starring a handsome man and an attractive woman.
But in our waffle-domed tea cosy, earflaps frolic in the daisy breezes of Dayton, Ohio.
I’m sorry the UBT is malfunctioning. Steaming bullshit is pouring out of its sockets. We’ve overloaded the system. I’ll have to conclude this column.
What does a consensual, ethical relationship between two young mega stars have to do with a couple of middle-aged cheaters? How is being the object of global ridicule “vanilla”? I’m sure this story is nightmarish to the spouses and children of Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot. Will Yael Kohen only confer chump sympathy if the affair partner is younger?
Yael, I hope you and your internalized misogyny fall backwards into a manure lagoon. For the comic relief of human folly.
I would suggest that Yael Kohen contemplate the fact that, regardless of how she looks at this situation, there is no way of spinning it to make it less bad than it already is.
Or, as my late (and occasionally rather profane) father would have put it …. “It doesn’t matter how much you polish a turd, it’s still going to be a turd when you are finished.”
LFTT
That is so funny! In my family our quote was, “You can put syrup on a turd, but that doesn’t make it a pancake.”
Kokichi,
My Dad would have liked that one.
LFTT
Yeah, but at least this guy wasn’t fucking a college student. (/sarcasm)
From the UBT: “No, he’s been fucking the 52-year-old head of Human Resources.”
This works on 2 levels, lol.
I hope Yael will be comforted when her spouse enjoys her explicit approval of an affair, as long as it’s with an age appropriate Schmoopie. Here. Waiting for the Karma bus…
Let me get this straight. This “journalist” thinks the affair is a positive thing because he chose to have it with someone his own age? For fucks sake….how low has the bar gone? I can’t believe they allowed that to be published! My FW had two affairs with subordinates (that I know of). The first was with an intern at his CPA firm when he was 41 and she was 22. The second was with the Controller at the company where he is the CFO. This time he is 58 and she is 62. They both still work there and are co-habitating in the home where I raised my daughter. But hey…let’s give him some points for choosing someone “age appropriate” this time. 🙄
I was gratified to see the author of this article is getting ripped to shreds in the comments section.
So “two age-appropriate adults doing the wrong thing” is now a subset of “whatever two consenting adults get up to is not to be criticized.” Hoo-boy.
I may not be the WSJ’s target audience, but somehow I always believed they were engaged in serious journalism. But this tripe? Again, hoo-boy.
Seriously. If this was some 20 something blogger/vlogger that had never “been through it” that would be one thing. I would hope the Wall Street Journal would do better than to lampshade abuse.
Apparently, there is hope for middle-aged women like me, who got bullied out of their last job by the married CEO’s alleged (much younger) sidepiece. If we tried really really hard, we could benefit from a little bit of sexual favoritism as well!
How about getting rid of patriarchy instead, and promoting people based on merit?
Similar situation at my last job, but I was in my 30s at the time. Two guys in senior management promoted their sidepieces, and all together ran the company into bankruptcy.
Thankfully I got out before everything collapsed but I’m told all the cheaters were shocked when the parent company swooped in and fired them. Too late to save the company though, or everybody else’s jobs.
I now work at a company that promotes on merit and visibly champions women, and my boss is a woman. The difference is night and day from the last place.
Right, they didn’t expand on the women (and men) who likely did not get that job because they were not screwing the CEO. That was the same scenario my ex was engaged in. He was screwing his direct report, she got a raise that year, no one else got a raise; so someone filed an ethics report. That is how he got caught.
“He was screwing his direct report, she got a raise that year, no one else got a raise; so someone filed an ethics report. That is how he got caught.”
whoa. I knew someone filed an ethics report, but I did not know about the raise. How incredibly stupid. Not that cheating is a smart move either, but that blatant of a bad move, at work? Yikes!
THIIIIISSSS !!!!!
If Cabot is capable of doing this — in a new marriage — then she can’t have practiced ethical HR behavior in other ways. Employees need for HR to prevent sexual favoritism. That is its role. Promotions, opportunities, career advancement, etc. should not be predicated on the whim of an unethical executive.
I went through this same thing, Amelia. Had to leave because the CEO’s (incompetent) mistress was ripping up people’s careers.
Cabot’s new marriage…to a wealthy-as-hell old-money guy, no less. This trashy gold-digging c-dumpster will never have enough.
I’ve posted before that my theory based on her divorce from the Thornby guy and timeline, Kristin Cabot is the OW wife of current hubby who’s also older and wealthy and poached him via some work related affair
So infuriating! My ex was almost a decade older than me. He cheated with women his age or older. I didn’t find it “interesting and modern”. Maybe I could’ve understood if he was chasing some hot young piece of ass, but what he did added insult to injury. When you’re in your 40’s and your husband is cheating with a 60 year old, it adds an extra layer of embarrassment.
” Maybe I could’ve understood if he was chasing some hot young piece of ass, but what he did added insult to injury. When you’re in your 40’s and your husband is cheating with a 60 year old, it adds an extra layer of embarrassment.”
I never know how to say this, but I felt the same way. In my case the woman was not older, she was 5 years younger; but she was not by most standards an appealing woman. Plus she had a horrible reputation for running with married men. Guess she finally got one that was stupid enough to take her and her bills on.
It was humiliating and I remember saying, I could understand it if she was a hot young woman like some of the women the other police officers dumped their wives for. But no, I got dumped for a troll. Of course in time I figured out it had nothing to do with me; still…
Maybe it’s not age; it’s just that 60 year olds conveniently present themselves as fuckable opportunities, and it’s easy for lazy, entitled FWs?
At 58, my ex had a profile on a cheating website and was messaging women who ranged in age from 21 (ew!) to 56…he had 2 long-running affairs with women that were his age. Both were a few years older than me.
I think some of these d-bags (mine anyway) are so desperate to have their egos stroked. Their morals are already in the gutter, so the other women’s age is irrelevant—does it really matter if the fellow turd they choose is regular or diamond-encrusted?
This was not a nightmarish story of exploitation.
It is though. Cabot had just bought a house with her husband. Koen doesn’t think that husband was exploited, at least financially if not in every other way? Their employees were also exploited, trust me.
You heard it here first. One (if not both) of these FWs is going to sue — Jumbotron, Inc.; Coldplay; the camera operator; TikTok; their former company; or all of the above. I predict they won’t slink off without trying to exact some kind of retribution. My guess is that it will be the exCEO, because reports state that he was a jackhole throughout his career.
There’s nothing to stop frivolous lawsuits except the common sense they clearly lack. They were in a public venue that projects, on-screen, shots of people who are in that public venue. The Coldplay singer stated his opinion, based on their observed behavior, that they were either having an affair or shy. His opinion turned out to be correct, so they can’t claim it was slander. If either one sues anywhere, I hope they get laughed out of court. THEY made their private relationship public.
Coldplay’s sign, posted at entrances, for their “Music of the Spheres World Tour” states, “Filming in Progress–By entering this space you are consenting to being filmed and agree that your likeness may be used for future promotional and commercial exploitation.”
The cheaters apparently were caught during the Jumbotron song, when the singer comments about people in the audience who are shown on camera.
If the disgraced former CEO or former HR head sue for public behavior in a public space after being warned they could be filmed, they’ll show continued short-sightedness and stupidity. If they sue, I hope they lose and the defendants are awarded legal fees.
“Your Honor, the defendant filmed me in a public place with my boss’ hands on my boobies! Surely this is an immoral act on the part of Ms. Springer and I demand remuneration for my suffering.”
I don’t know why these nuts don’t consider the financial abuse if they don’t consider anything else.
My ex convinced me the last year we were together to invest in a river from property. He was fully planning to dump me, but was still in lying mode. That caused me intense grief. Not only did I sign the paperwork to provide them a romantic get away; I was helping pay for it. The whole last year we were together, he kept coming up with reasons we couldn’t go to the site. Water pipes, no heat. He went many times that last year on weekends to “meet people there to work on the property.” Show of hands on how many believe that was the truth. But being the trusting spouse, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I doubt either will sue their former employer. These corporations have this pretty well locked up with employee contracts and golden parachute incentives. They may go after others though.
My disordered narc ex used the SAME logic and this was years ago. He wrote me an email (evidence I used!) to tell me I’d most likely think that if he was having an affair it would be with someone younger but surprise surprise, it was someone in her late 50’s just like us! (Also his coworker and subordinate and a serial husband poacher, but who really cares about details like that…) The real news is that she was old, like that was supposed to make me feel, I don’t know, BETTER? Or worse?
How ridiculous! The attitude is “don’t worry I’m not some weird pervert, I’m just cheating on you.” Like great, thanks, that sure does make me feel better.
If I hadn’t seen it in writing, I wouldn’t have believed he could be so delusional.It was one of the documents I gave my divorce attny.
Sounds like this was written by a cheater. She’s probably proud of herself for having an “age-appropriate “ affair.
We all know the mental gymnastics it takes to follow their justifications for their affair(s).
So much toxic positivity. So much projection.
Cheaters are entitled and lazy. The fact that two lazy, entitled adult found each other at a job and started an affair that had a built in cover story isn’t a surprise.
Pretending to be a hot young stallion takes effort. You buy new clothes, change your personal care routine. You have to spend money on things your future young affair partner likes rather than stuff you like.
So. Much. Effort
Or you f**k the willing person nearby.
Yael – find a good therapist or an adult female role model. Nature makes young people pretty because they don’t have the wisdom or competence they will gain over time.
“I’m still hot enough to have a cheater pick me after 40!!! ” isn’t a feminist anthem.
Snort! You don’t get character points for not doing worse shit than what you did!
By that logic, we’d be giving prizes to Ted Bundy because he could have murdered 142 women but limited himself to 103. Or to Hunter Biden because he was only a drug addict, niece raping felon, but he never, ever jaywalked. Or to Diddy because he only beat he crap out of 32% of his girlfriends.
I know this is off topic, but if I am reading right; Andy is co founder of the company. So his lifestyle likely won’t change much. I am guess his partner has already secured managing control of the company via lawsuit. Cabot will get a pay out to prevent a tell all book.
As is always, the chump will pick up the pieces.
My inner UBT is stuck on this :
No, if there was actual monogamy, there wouldn’t be an affair, so it couldn’t be inescapable.
Perhaps “Affairs are an inescapable feature of a society where people pretend to be monogamous but betray spouses for sport”
That struck me too. Yes, many people enter a monogamous relationship and sadly, discover their partner is a cheater. But it is not inescapable. Not all partners cheat. What the hell is wrong with her?
It’s is neither interesting nor modern that Cabot is his age. I’ll give the “writer” this, it is not that common. Sure, we see a lot of age inappriate APs. But that doesn’t make this affair interesting or modern. Workplace affair? Yawwwwwn..tale as old as time.
My FW went for a younger, conventionally attractive-ish woman. She wasn’t THAT much younger, just younger than us at 36. And she wasn’t some knockout, but she also was pretty enough.
I did at one point feel some kind of relief that she wasn’t some super hot babe, simply because D-Day was right after my 50th birthday and I hadn’t been feeling great about the changes age had left in me. I think if she was a Playboy bunny mterial, it might have been harder on me at the time.
But by the end, I wouldn’t have cared if it was Marilyn Monroe herself, they coud have him.
Double cheeseburgers in your bedroom closet may be an inescapable feature of veganism.
Ha ha ha!!!
I was going to venture that ax-murdering is an inescapable feature of peering baby ducks, but your offering is better aligned to the foolishness we are discussing
Like all nihilistically cynical proclamations, this is probably confessional because, in this hack’s sad world view, everyone betrays.
That part bugged me so much, too! Your re-write is excellent…sadly so accurate.
Is Yael Kohen just waking up to– and moreover reassured and flattered by– the fact that creepy old cheaters will basically f*ck anything? By that token, should I have been flattered and reassured that the guy who tried to violently rape me in Rome was known by everyone to be gay or that the creepy old married boss who sexually harassed me when I was heavily, waddlingly pregnant was later in headlines for raping teenagers?
The corporate media love to get she-shills to peddle apologism for domestic abuse and workplace sexual misconduct for the same reason the son of Cuban immigrants is handy for whitewashing and rationalizing violent ICE raids and extrajudicial abductions.
Beyond the age of 40, I had more than enough encounters with workplace creeps as well.
Nowadays I’m not even sure whether it is only for physical reasons that many of these guys tend to target younger women, or because they are more likely to be in a position where it’s harder for them to say no.
Six of one, half dozen of the other.
It’s rather disappointing to discover one does not automatically graduate out of target status as a mom or after forty. The way my mother helped catch a serial rapist is that, a half hour before he raped and murdered a cyclist in a nearby park, he was leering at my mother with such disturbing intensity at the gas station where she was filling her bike tires that she sketched him from memory when she got to work and then turned the sketch over to police when she heard the news on the radio. She was fifty.
Your mother is a hero
I agree though I’m biased. 😉 She was an adorably cheerful badass. She worked as a sketch and forensic artist for news networks and the FBI, attending serial killer and mafia trials and occasionally going undercover as a human camera in investigations of domestic terror groups. No one saw her coming and nothing ever rattled her.
When I was in high school, one of my teacher, a lovely woman with severe cerebral palsy, told me she had been raped many times. She walked with difficulty and shaking, and was an easy target. Predators like easy targets.
I think predators, like hunters, vary in taste for prey. Some like easy pickings and some like big game. Some are attracted to the magnitude of violation and betrayal– defiling someone otherwise sacrosanct or off limits (like a nun, a child, a grandparent or a disabled person).
But you’re totally right that, being cowards and opportunists, even the big game predators prefer canned hunts– formidable targets in temporarily disadvantaged circumstances. A tiger skin rug has the same bragging rights even if it was limping or had just lost its job or a family member when it was taken down.
It’s only in the movies that rape victims are solely young, attractive women or girls. IRL a rape victim is anyone of any age or appearance. A rapist is looking for prey, not a fashion model.
Yes. When the Russians invaded Germany during WW2, they targeted every woman and girl between the ages of 8 and 80.
Did you see the German film Anonyma (alt title A Woman in Berlin)? It got a ton of flak for depicting German women as complicit in becoming sexual chattel but I don’t think that’s a fair assessment since the film gave a nuanced view of how every type of woman regardless of age or politics became entrapped in a protection racket where they had to accept bangmaid status in a brothel or for one member of the invading military or became fair game for constant violent random rape or simply faced execution for resisting. Some eventually adapt to the lesser evil but under obvious coercion.
The other thing I appreciated about the film is that it aligns with evolutionary scientist Richard Wrangham’s view that one of the main drivers of war since our species swung from trees is sexual dominance– basically rape. The film doesn’t frame Russians as any different than any other invading army in that sense.
“one of the main drivers of war since our species swung from trees is sexual dominance– basically rape.”
I can definitely see that, the passing on of genetics (forcible or not) as a motivation for war. But also, and I guess it amounts to the same thing really, dominance over resources is a more overt motivation. Once you have passed on your genetic material (perhaps I should just say “children”) dominance over another’s land, water, food, etc. ensures the survival of your issue. Maybe OW and OM make that a justification for partner poaching. Or maybe I’m full of shite, Idk.
You bring up some great themes.
Because primatologist Richard Wrangham’s radical evolutionary feminism tends to irk mainstream science publishers, media sponsors and powerful patriarchal douchebags in general, he gets shockingly little airplay despite his stellar academic certs and designation as a successor to mentor Jane Goodall. All the same, as a genuinely passionate intellectual, he seems happy enough to do interviews with all sorts of quirky and off-the-beaten-path presenters like the series he did with Lex Fridman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj5QAIjDulQ&t=13s
Anyway, Wrangham always comes down on the side of sexual dominance as the driving motive for our species with the amassing of resources as secondary to that end. As in “more resources = more pussy.” He makes a good argument in the video above by saying that members of invading armies often rape women to death which hardly fits with the passing-on-of-genes/resources argument.
The irrational priorities also fit with Wrangham’s view that we’re a suicidal species that, without conscious and careful long-term social engineering (focusing particularly on gender equity and sexual justice), we will eventually destroy ourselves and the planet.
I haven’t seen the film but I’m aware of the history and could feel my eye twitch that people could see it and think German women were “complicit.” It’s not a choice if your only options are rape by one man versus gang rape and possibly getting beaten to death.
Geez, talk about pathetic pick me trash.
Bitch I’m 51 and have zero interest in trash like that. I take good care of myself and have a lovely loyal bf, and I frankly don’t give a hoot if trash like Bezos or whoever the fuck this guy is notices me.
I’m not for sale, but apparently this pick me is. Good to know that all she got out of this is that women over 25 can be trash for sale too.
I’m going to throw something else out there. In my experience a lot of men are lazy and will go along with a woman who freely offers it up so he doesn’t have to make much effort, but he wouldn’t necessarily be interested enough to make much effort. This woman probably had the office next to his and was an easy fuck that he didn’t need to put much effort into.
If he’d actually had to put forth a lot of effort there’s a higher chance it would have been someone younger.
So if this so called writer offers herself up for an easy fuck plenty of men will take her up on it, and she might even get a dinner or concert here and there.
Especially if it’s a reimbursed business expense, which this probably was.
#winning
You really sound like you think older women are “worth” less than younger ones. Do you think that?
So the question arises: What apart from sex and the dubious pleasure of an occasional mediocre meal does a
side piece woman derive from an extramarital relationship with a man who.almost inevitably is also cheating on his unsuspecting spouse?
When interrogated about this very aspect of her first ever affair, which occurred in my now ex wife’s early twenties, I received the unsettling, though I suppose honest, reply that she was horny and easy ( her words) and that she enjoyed the kudos of being the bonk cushion of the senior.medical.officer in the ER, the boss, a surgeon with a high net worth and munificent salary, who.only occasionally took her out to eat at lower tier corporate restaurants, only bought her a couple of truly cheap trinkets and never took her for high end hotel stays or trips of any kind. So I said to.Mrs WTFL so you destroyed a marriage for the cheap thrill and envy of the three other nurses on her shift in the ER..just for the bragging rights really?? What a cesspool of cheating that work environment turned out to be. All four nurses, three of whom were married having affairs with Residents, Interns and visiting doctors.
I think what they get out of it is a delicious thrill that, to their own partner amounts to “I know something you don’t know and that gives me power”, and for the spouse of their OW/OM it’s a feeling of superiority, like “Your spouse is in my bed, so I’m better than you and that gives me power.” I wouldn’t be surprised if, across the board, cheaters are just broken children trying to prove their worth to everyone. To paraphrase John Delony they “are seeking something out there to fix what is wrong in here”.
As much as I enjoy the U.B.T. bringing rational daylight to the dark recesses of disordered minds, I couldn’t finish reading this. My curiosity and want to try and understand the thought process of the disordered has given way to disgust. These individuals are now an inferior subset of humanity to me. Low level thinkers to be quickly identified and placed as far outside of my life as possible.
It’s so weird to me when people (especially fellow women) presume female empowerment means stupid shit like fucking the boss instead of economic empowerment, or control over our own medical decisions, or fair representation in business and politics.
Nope! “Empowerment” still revolves around men, apparently… and being dishonest while you do it.
Personality disordered people mistake ego fluffing for eMpOwErMeNt. A less discussed reality of being a FW is that they tend to run with the wrong company, trust the wrong people and get reamed, duped and used themselves.
Yes! I’ve noticed this! Disordered people think they’re clever and fool everyone, but they don’t and often fall prey to the dumbest scams themselves.
Long before we realized my aunt had a personality disorder, she had a track record of personal tragedies that were entirely her fault. For example, my mom had a terrible experience with our local dentist and warned all of us. My aunt felt she knew better and kept seeing the guy.
This idiot ends up damaging her teeth so badly, she has to pay $30k to get them fixed with someone else.
Age really has nothing to do with cheaters or their shitty morals.. I wasn’t at all.surprised when I read that the findings of a study on age as it related to.infidelity showed that the highest incidence of women cheating was in their sixties and for men it was in their seventies. It certainly aligned with my ex-wife’s last affair which occurred when she was 68 and her AP was in his mid seventies. The opportunities abound for adulterers when they are retired and have a great deal.of free time available to go screw that cute grandma at the senior center, or that hunk.of a buff retired fireman whose wife was dying of cancer my ex met at the aqua-aerobics class in leisure world. Both pretended to be out doing health and safety volunteer check ups on the oldest of the old, while in reality they would sneak.back to.his house for bonking sessions while his wife was receiving chemo.infusions. Totally disgusting
“But in our waffle-domed tea cosy, earflaps frolic in the daisy breezes of Dayton, Ohio.”
Exactly, darling UBT. Exactly.
“Age Appropriate.”
We used that phrase when I worked with kids.
Was the whole point of that “journalism”, and I use that term loosely here, to prove that people aren’t just banging the babysitter anymore?
Why are we putting a positive spin on this?
“Affairs may be an inescapable feature of monogamy”…actually, very escapable! Don’t do it!
I was talking with a friend about this whole thing last night. Their whole thing was “you know, if you are going in public with somebody and you are up to no good, if you are just sitting next to them there is plausible deniability. Those dipshits got caught red handed!”
Buy the ticket, take the ride. They got what was coming to them.
Happy Tuesday to those that celebrate!
How low is that bar for these rich men that this writer is doing the “at least she’s age-appropriate” dance?
The bar is in hell.
Measured in negative quanta
I just wanted to give a shout-out to the innocent spouses in this sordid soap opera. I admire them for their dignity, sense of privacy and the way they are protecting their children by not getting caught up in the fray. They have intuited what it took me years to see: there is nothing here to fight for.
Just horrid.
Affairs are inescapable, and workplace affairs just are.
No. They create so very much chaos and disruption. I had two workplaces where affairs were rampant, and it was very, very awkward. There’s a reason that the military supposedly clamps down on that sort of thing. It affects the morale and overall functioning of a unit.
I was reading an op-ed on a managerial science site about how workplace affairs, particularly adulterous ones, can cause traumatic stress in bystanders for multiple reasons.
Can confirm. Last place of employment had more than one affair happening in upper management. The schmoopies were allowed to terrorize the staff and make all sorts of stupid decisions that ultimately broke the business and drove it into the ground. Which, you know, is why it’s normally considered a terrible idea to put 25-year olds with no business experience in charge of a multi-million dollar operation.
It’s telling that every single ex-coworker I’ve spoken to – and I’ve spoken to dozens – reported feeling deeply traumatized by that company.
Admittedly, the affairs were a symptom of a bigger problem, which was management’s lack of ethics in every other area as well. That place was poison and I’m happy to report they’re no longer in business.
My mother’s second cousin and my uncle were both published organizational psychologists (my uncle also successfully put it into practice) who presented at major institutions about the corrosive effects of narcissism within business structures. Except that, in their era, “narcissism” wasn’t a pop-psych buzz term and they used different language to describe the personality type, including lists of “red flags” that involved interpersonal ethics.
I wish my uncle were still alive so I could ask him if fucking the help was “organizationally corrosive” but I’d venture to guess he’d think it was.
Yes, they do!
I actually left one job partially because the boss’s affair partner hated my guts and was sabotaging my career in some ways. Thankfully, I found something that actually fit me better within the same government agency. His boss actually took me out to lunch a few weeks after I left and asked if the affair partner was a factor. Well, yes. He was outraged.
Sorry that I repeat this a lot but it cracked me up. The workplace whistleblower in my situation told me how creeped out everyone was that, during the affair, the AP suddenly started bossing around peers as if she was wearing FW’s “strap-on dick.”
Apparently it’s a classic thing among workplace side pieces and probably explains a good part of the motivation to bang a superior: something that’s sometimes called “subordinate authoritarianism” in managerial science which, in plainer language, is someone willing to kiss up so they can eventually slap down, i.e., “stoops to conquer.”
In political science, it’s been used to describe how some people in struggling tiers of society that have everything to lose under authoritarian leaders or bosses still support and accept subordinate roles in this kind of hierarchy and are repelled by egalitarianism because they see themselves as (to paraphrase Steinbeck) “temporarily frustrated” future autocrats and dictators.
As I had mentioned before, this is very similar to my own experience. My workplace bully (and likely CEO-schmoopie) acted like she was everyone’s boss, even while she was in a very junior role. I pushed back, because she was just so ridiculously incompetent, and I was afraid of the damage she might cause. That didn’t go down well. First, she started leveling relentless (and baseless) criticisms at me. When this didn’t work (because I refuted every single one of her criticisms in a calm and friendly manner while others were watching), she resorted to lies and manipulations (even involving senior executives other than the CEO) to disrupt my work and make me look bad.
I guess it didn’t help that at the time, I was officially tasked with ghostwriting for the CEO (even if he barely ever interacted with me in person). In some ways, she probably perceived me as her rival, even if I was very clearly not “competing” with her on a sexual level. Maybe this was the whole point, though: I had earned some of the clout and respect she was craving without sleeping with anyone, and she couldn’t tolerate that.
Most of her attacks on me were ridiculous, bordering on childish. Yet she became so unpredictable, obsessive and vindictive, I could never be sure what she would do next. I wasn’t sleeping well at the time (if at all). The worst thing is that several times, I took all the proof of her actions I had and went to my direct superiors, because I didn’t know what else to do. Every time, their response was: “Her behavior is not okay. We are going to talk to her about it.” Yet, nothing happened, and her behavior got progressively worse.
I almost wish she had cared only about money (rather than power). If that had been the case, she may have been less disruptive.
My mother used to say that people seeking power are always more dangerous than those seeking only money. But I always thought those who seek fame are probably a mixed bag with some attracted to the symbolic immortality and power of it (and the endless opportunities to get laid) and others who may be in careers that pragmatically require fame to even work or have job security (like actors or news anchors) but then keep their private lives private.
I’ve probably already said this but you have to read the studies on “hyperfemininity” as an exaggerated gender counterpart to “toxic masculinity.” You’ll be saying “Aha” and “Exactly” every other sentence.
I figure the reason so many women like this talk in squawky or whispery-weirdo little girl voices is to compensate for chronic rage and cannibalism, like slopping canned frosting on a bear trap. But what’s good for ascent may not quite work once they get the power they’re after. For instance, apparently Margaret Thatcher’s original adult voice was so over-the-top “twee” that she had to go to a voice coach in order to command any authority in the public sphere.
According to Wrangham, the Thatcher types go all the way back to our ape days and, despite their aggression and willingness to crush others who get in their way, they never advance the general status of other females and solely serve the most aggressive patriarchal agendas. In other words, subordinate authoritarians. They are what Malcolm X might call “House Slaves” within the patriarchal hierarchy– the ones who have dangerously internalized the master’s values in exchange for scraps and who tend to inform on the “field slaves” who get zero positive reinforcement and are the most likely to rebel.
“Comic relief”??? For whom? My FW’s side pieces ranged from strippers and prostitutes in their 20s to a long term affair with a wh*re (amateur variety) who turned 60 during the affair. None of these were “comic relief” nor did I take any comfort in the wh*re being “age appropriate”. A wh*re who “dates” married men is a wh*re no matter her age. And unfaithful husbands get no respect for choosing an old wh*re instead of a baby wh*re. Give me a break!
Given that this hack is about as witty as melanoma, it’s a little ironic that she wrote a book about how female comedians face an unfair rap for being unfunny.
It’s not like age magically confers immunity to STDs in side pieces and FWs. The chumps in these situations are still put at risk without consent. Rape by deception and deadly infection are such knee-slappers.
I highly doubt that old HR camp follower is the only slag Randy Andy is banging behind his wife’s back. Is this affair less “refreshing” if dude is also fucking the 23 year old receptionist and 19 year old sex workers? Jeez, WSJ, you’re revealing moral insights only David Brooks can appreciate.
Lol, hell hath no moral outrage like side pieces who invariably discover they’re not the only side pieces.
“Jeff Bezos is an honorable man because he could actually be worse. He could’ve married a much younger silicon-injected spousal appliance, but he didn’t. Silicon technology has come a long way, and Jeff is a disruptor.”
THIS!
On D-Day, when I told him he was a simply a douchey dude having a midlife crisis, my FW denied my accusation. He told me that at 56, he was far past midlife — therefore the term ‘midlife crisis’ did not apply to him. Then he proudly said his AP was only 6 years younger than him. He could have gone for a 25 year old, but he did the honorable thing and chose a 50 year old AP.
Yes, Jeff Bezos. The new Mrs. Bezos hasn’t been faithful to a man long-term for most of her adult life. She has a history of being somewhat predatory. Time will tell how that one goes…
A good point, but she’s 55, closing in on 60, and has managed to marry an extremely rich man. Maybe she’ll realize she should stick to him. I doubt it though. I give this marriage 2 years at best.
Idk, I think she can probably tough this one out for however many years and however many $billions. Mrs. Bendover is cast from the same mold but approaching 60, so her opportunities are shrinking and she may be stuck with Dr. D. Lusional for life.
At least it wasnt worse..it could have been much worse, look on the bright side, older woman are good too when you are King. Any woman is good when you are king..it doesn’t matter. We know this. My X chose a woman from another country and her fellow country men thought that was great someone has my house who had nothing…it could have been worse. ALWAYS!! Let all of us chumps think how it could have been worse.
Gwyneth Paltrow is Astronomer’s “temporary spokesperson”. 🤣🤣
Kara Swisher talks about it in her latest podcast.
‘There’s also the pain and embarrassment they likely caused their families, who now have to pick up the pieces.’
They likely caused …
Likely….
Hmmm
Wow, I am glad you clued us into this awful article. News flash: cheating and betrayal know no age limits. My ex FW was having enocounters with many other women, some work-related, when I met him. He was in his 30s back then. When I began to learn of his many betrayal objects, he was still doing the same things, just with more sketchy/bisexual/alcoholic folks. In his 70s. They never saw his CPap machine at night or his diabetes injections or…some were his age or older, and some were much, much younger. Some single, some married. There is no age limitation here. Nothing new happening here, but the commentary is pathetic. I may be in great shape and feel confident and strong in my 70s, but you will never see me on a kiss cam with a co-worker. Ugh. Adolescent, stupid, and so, so pathetic.
I’m sorry that your POS cheating ex lied to you about his sexual orientation. I know how shocking and devastating it is to learn of your partner’s “secret sexual basement” (Minwalla), and I can only imagine how this deception would make that more painful and complex.
However, there is nothing wrong with being bisexual, and it has nothing to do with being “sketchy” or an alcoholic. Chumps have diverse identities and backgrounds, and this includes sexuality/sex/gender. We should all feel welcome here.
Thanks so, so much for the heads up here. I appreciate it. Like all of us, I am still learning (even in my 70s!) Thank you. And I really like Minwalla’s work, too. I keep copies of his articles in my car, gym bag and purse. Hand them out to folks (much less often now) and let them know that he explains it much better than I can.
I really can’t get over the tired “But they’re HAPPY” line of thinking and excusal.
Seriously, bank robbers, rapists, murderers tend to be VERY happy plying their trades.
But we are now supposed to celebrate shitty people doing shitty things to others because it makes them happy?
I’m sorry, I did not appreciate the UBT saying “But it was all worth it to feel up flaccid 52-year-old breasts.” I know it is supposed to be snark, but #InternalizedMisogynyAgeismMuch?