133. Should You Report Workplace Cheating?

Unknown Speaker (0:36): Hey. Welcome to tell me how you're mighty, real talk about cheating. I'm Tracy Schorn, the blogger known as Chump Lady, where I implore people to leave cheaters and gain lives.

Unknown Speaker (0:46): And I'm Sarah Gorel, radio broadcaster by day, single mother of four. And thirteen years ago, my ex walked out on his family for his affair partner. And it didn't feel like it at the time, but my life is so much better without him.

Unknown Speaker (0:58): And we're here to tell you that you are mighty. We survived infidelity, and you can too. And this is our podcast. Welcome. Hey.

Tracy Schorn (1:10): Welcome to another episode. We're gonna answer your voice mails today, Sarah and I. And they're kind of on the theme of outing cheaters. One situation is outing professional misconduct, and the other one is outing with your kids and and disclosure that way. So we were going to get into it.

Tracy Schorn (1:29): I have not ever had the position of having to out my cheater in a professional setting. Your ex Sarah, that was a workplace affair. Did that come into your divorce at all?

Sarah Gorel (1:40): No. Because here, don't bring all that into divorce. You don't delve into the details. It's pretty much no fault divorcee. You don't go, oh, he did this and she did that.

Sarah Gorel (1:48): No one's interested. I think a lot of the time if someone's partner has an affair at work then they have to be quite careful about outing them because that's their income and that income is going to be maybe something that will support the children and if you out them and they become unemployed you might well find that your own financial circumstances are dramatically affected.

Tracy Schorn (2:08): Right. See, here in The States, it's a bad look for the employer because here, the law is you cannot create a sexualized work environment. Like, it leaves your employer open to lawsuits if there's workplace affairs. So they are frowned upon, not on a moral high ground, but because because of a lawsuit, because of it, it can become very expensive, because there's an appearance of favoritism, it's bad for morale, it's questionable how much it's enforced, but it's not allowed in the military code of conduct. It's like an employer issue, so the way it comes up, like in chumps and divorce here, is, can my lawyer use this as leverage?

Tracy Schorn (2:49): You know? But then it's like you said, it's like, do you really want this person to be unemployed? Do you really want to stir that pot? You know?

Sarah Gorel (2:57): That's so interesting because I don't think the same applies to legislation in the workplace on affairs here. And I think we've all been there. I won't name names, but I've been in a couple of workplaces where affairs have been going on and it's just so uncomfortable for everybody else. Was one of my first radio jobs, the man who was in charge of the radio station, he was having an affair with his secretary, very cliched, and you'd go up to his office to see him, not to see her, and you would see them in all sorts of compromising positions and it was like oh no, you just didn't dare go up there' and also of course it did have all that issue where there was clear favouritism. She was promoted way beyond her capabilities and I've seen affairs in other workplaces where it creates a divide where people are thinking should I say, should I not say?

Sarah Gorel (3:46): When things go wrong you get the whole office suddenly becomes this place where they're avoiding one another. So I think it's interesting that in America, there's more legislation because it does affect absolutely everybody.

Tracy Schorn (3:59): There's protected categories of employment and gender is one of them. Pregnancy is another. And if you you can argue gender discrimination if, say, the person who's sleeping with the boss gets promoted, you know, or if they've created a sexualized work environment, that goes against your civil rights. And whether or not you're engaging in the affair. If it's just, you know, like you said, someone's getting promoted unfairly, they've created a big icky environment.

Unknown Speaker (4:25): Now, you know, lawsuits are expensive, and how often this gets enforced, I don't know. I'd be curious, may we open it up to, you know, what's been your experience in workplace affairs?

Sarah Gorel (4:35): I think what's interesting as well is that so many affairs start in the workplace. You look at the profession my ex was in, the police force, where people are working shifts and long hours and anything like that inevitably that's where affairs start. People are sort of thrown together, they quite often spend a lot of time in one another's company, they disassociate themselves from their family and a lot of people got in touch and said yeah the police force is kind of notorious cause it breeds that familiarity and that bond where people are working in quite a different environment to everyone else and facing challenges that other people don't face.

Tracy Schorn (5:12): Yeah. You know, it's funny cause people always think a certain profession has more cheaters than others. And I hear police, I hear firemen, but the most, by far, of any other profession is academics. More teachers, professors, I'd have to say number one, just in my experience of being chump lady for fourteen years, academics. But yeah, same kind of thing.

Unknown Speaker (5:34): You're in this little precious environment. It's you. And of course, we work jobs. We didn't sleep with our coworkers. You could have lovely coworkers and not sleep with them, right?

Tracy Schorn (5:43): You know? So this whole, how do you prevent affairs thing, it's like, don't go into a certain profession. No. Just just have a basic set of ethics that you don't fuck your coworkers. That's a good starting point.

Sarah Gorel (5:54): Yeah. Absolutely. But I do think that it's that whole thing, isn't it? About whether you out someone, whether you bring their boss into it or their workplace when you're going through the divorce proceedings. I think ultimately, you ought to think selfishly what benefits you as opposed to everyone wants revenge, but actually sometimes getting that revenge is going to come back on you.

Unknown Speaker (6:15): So I think very careful.

Tracy Schorn (6:17): Yeah. I I would say always talk to your attorney. Don't don't try this at home, you know? Alright. Well, let's listen to our our message here we got.

Caller 1 (6:26): I recently got out of a relationship with someone who was cheating on me and lying to me from the very start. Sure, it's a common story you've heard a lot, but I wanted to discuss the difficulty of reporting someone because this person cheated with someone who was a mentee of his through a professional platform. I reported him and was blown off as a personal matter, so I recently reached out to the woman to back me up. But now I'm feeling bad.

Unknown Speaker (7:02): She didn't give a lot of details, but a mentee, it sounds like it's somebody young and perhaps vulnerable. And in this kind of situation and again, I don't know the particulars but I personally would report, if this is somebody underage or if there's a huge power differential, that's the kind of thing that maybe let the ethics board know. And again, you have to see what's in your best interest. Do you need this person's continued employment to raise your children? I don't know.

Tracy Schorn (7:27): But obviously, if it's something with underage people, call the police. And that happens more than you would think. Child born. I've heard all sorts of horror stories. But this is like a mentee.

Unknown Speaker (7:39): That does seem like an ethics violation. And of course, the person said that it was blown off as a personal matter. That's depressing.

Sarah Gorel (7:46): Yeah, it is depressing, especially it's that abuse of power, isn't it? And again, that quite often happens where you see someone who they're more attractive or they seem more attractive at workplace because of that power, and they use that to their own advantage.

Tracy Schorn (8:00): Sure. Yeah. I mean, predators go where the prey is, Right? You know, they wanna work with vulnerable populations. They wanna be in positions of authority.

Tracy Schorn (8:07): Absolutely. I always tell people and usually it comes up, do I tell the other chump? But I think do the right thing. Do the ethical thing. But then you have to let go of the outcome.

Tracy Schorn (8:18): So, you know, this person reported an abuse of power. I think that's the right thing to do. And then you have to let go. You know, they may not decide to pursue it. Maybe you planted a seed, but your conscience is clear.

Tracy Schorn (8:31): And you do have to examine your own motives. You know, we say, if it feels good, don't do it. And I think women also have to be careful, if they're going into family court, that there's already a bias against a woman scorned and bitterness and, you know, vengeance that women are seen this way. There's already a preponderance of that stereotype. So anything you can undo to avoid being painted that way.

Tracy Schorn (8:57): But I think in this case, can go, look, clearly, this is an abuse of power. This is a person in a position of authority with somebody who's supposed to be mentoring, not dating.

Sarah Gorel (9:08): Yeah. And I think what's really sad about this is that it's come out feeling badly as a result of it and don't you feel bad? You've done what you can, you've reported, you can walk out of this with your head held high, you've done the right thing and now try and forget about them, leave them in the dim and distant past. Hopefully. It's going to take a while, but that's where they need to be.

Tracy Schorn (9:29): Absolutely. Move forward. Well, speaking of reporting, we have a different kind of reporting situation, and this one I know you can relate to. This is where the kid discovers the cheating, and it's an awkward conversation between the chump parent and the child. Should we listen to this one?

Caller 2 (9:46): A month after I filed for divorce, my son asked me who AP was. It turned out he knew her initials because he had been witnessing naughty texting between his father and AP. He didn't know that I already knew what was going on. He thought he was telling me that his father was cheating. I told him that I had already learned his father had a girlfriend and that isn't allowed when you're married.

Caller 2 (10:08): He said he understood. I thanked him for his bravery telling me. Fuckwit likely has not realized that he has outed himself. But as my son said to me, how stupid does he think I am?

Tracy Schorn (10:20): These stories make me so sad because, and again, it's not talked about with cheating, is that kids have to carry the secret from the Trump parent. And nobody knows what the other person knows because there's been this conspiracy of silence. I just think it's so unfair to put that on kids.

Sarah Gorel (10:37): It's so difficult though, isn't it? Because this is how I discovered my husband's cheating was that the messages came up on my son's phone because somehow their phones had become linked. And my son just came through to me because something had happened. It was nothing to do with cheating. In the message there was something that happened to a family member and he came through and said, oh, what's happened?

Sarah Gorel (10:55): What's happened? And then I saw the whole stream of these cheating messages. And my son at the time was 10 and he hadn't quite realised what was going on and also he wasn't sure what to do with it. My older nephew, who was 12 at the time and who'd been living with us, he knew exactly what was going on but he didn't know how to say anything. So it really impacted on him because he kept it a secret because he didn't want to be the one to cause the problem.

Sarah Gorel (11:21): But it had a huge impact on him and I used to keep wondering what was upsetting him so much. Now looking back I realize it. But it's really hard because I think initially my son felt kind of guilty that he exposed the affair. And it's so hard, isn't it, when children are involved?

Tracy Schorn (11:36): Yeah. It's it's an unfair burden. And there's so many ways we excuse cheaters, like it's a private matter. You know, who knows what goes on in a marriage? But the fact is that cheaters usually do not act alone.

Tracy Schorn (11:48): They have these conspiracies, and they press other people into their conspiracies unwittingly, and sometimes willingly. You know, friends or people they know or people in their workplace know that they're cheating. But when it's your kids, it's a weapon. You're hurting your kid with this kind of secret and secrecy. And I've read so many stories of cheaters who introduce their children to affair partners, and then now it's up to the kid to not tell mom or dad about the special friend that they're having ice cream with.

Tracy Schorn (12:19): I mean, there's just a lot of this kind of damage done. And this kid is being so brave. I mean, now, admittedly, it's after the divorce and the person who called in. But to have that initiate that conversation with his mom, like, I think I know who this is. Did you know the dad's cheating?

Tracy Schorn (12:37): That's a really brave step. Like, he wasn't gonna protect his father's behavior. He was gonna tell his mom.

Sarah Gorel (12:43): Yeah. And it's an awful lot, isn't it, to put on young shoulders, though? Because I think a lot of adults who know about affairs don't know what to do with that information. So for children, it's an added extra stress.

Unknown Speaker (12:56): It's really a stress. I mean, one of the most harrowing stories I've heard is chump lady. I mean, just really heartbreaking. I hope I can talk about that. Choking up.

Tracy Schorn (13:05): It was really emotional. I to Australia several years ago and got to do some talks as chump lady, and was talking about this issue of keeping secrets and stuff in the family. And this woman came up to me afterwards and said, You know, when my husband was cheating before the divorce, one of my kids had this terrible eating disorder. Like, they nearly died. I think it was her son.

Tracy Schorn (13:27): And just real psychiatric crisis. Wouldn't eat, wouldn't eat, wouldn't eat. And as soon as she had a D Day and started to divorce her husband, her son got better. And she goes, It just occurred to me now that maybe he may have been carrying the secret that his father was a cheer because of how this aligned, that he stopped eating, he got really sick, literally sick from the secret of it. And her liberating herself from that marriage and finding out freed him, freed this kid.

Tracy Schorn (13:58): And I wish people would think about the damage they're doing. I realize they're in a magical thinking kind of thing. They're happy. You must be happy for me, but they're really harming the people they purport to love.

Sarah Gorel (14:12): I think as well, this goes on quite often after the affair is discovered too. So for instance, in my case, my ex husband was desperately telling me that the affair had finished and that he was going to come back to us and then he took the children out for the afternoon and then my three year old comes back and announces that they had met this other woman when they'd gone bowling and he said oh yes yes yes no we just bumped into her that was a by accident and the audacity the cheek to think that you could tell someone that you were trying to rebuild your relationship take the children out and then introduce them to the woman that you were having an affair with. It was quite staggering. And also, they then believed that the children would just cover this information up. Of course, yeah.

Sarah Gorel (14:55): So I think that this is something that happens not just as I was saying at the beginning of the affair, but then it continues where children are asked to conceal information or not say things, or they're pitted against the other partner. It is really difficult for them.

Unknown Speaker (15:10): Yeah. But it just shows the entitlement thinking that is a cheater. Neurax assumed, right, because he's pickled in this entitlement, that of course the children are going to keep his secret. You know, that is what he wants. Everyone is an extension of him.

Unknown Speaker (15:24): He would keep the secret, ergo, they're going to keep the secret. I think it's hard for them to have the theory of mind to think that even a child is going to think differently than they do, is going to have a different set of ethics, is going to feel pressures, is going to feel pain, because these cheaters can't get outside themselves, you know? And yeah, I think the entitlement thinking is poisonous. It is crazy, but you know what? That story is so common.

Tracy Schorn (15:50): It's so common. And I wish it wasn't. I I get stories, you know, the divorce is fresh, and they're moving the kids in with the affair partner. Now, lot of people have things written into their custody arrangements so that you cannot, or you have to wait so long to introduce new partners. But then it's very hard to enforce because then what do you do?

Tracy Schorn (16:13): Then you're like your ex partner police.

Sarah Gorel (16:17): And then you go back into that category, which loves to be thrown around that you are the bitter ex ruining the fun and that you're only doing it because you're, you're so unpleasant yourself.

Tracy Schorn (16:27): Right. You can't get over them. You're so hung up. Right. And you're controlling, right.

Tracy Schorn (16:32): You're trying to control them. I think it's such a hard position as a parent, especially when your kids are younger, because you don't know who your ex is introducing people to. You hope that they're solid citizens. Sometimes they're not, you know? Sometimes they're abusive or addicted or I mean, you don't know what your kid is going into.

Tracy Schorn (16:54): I'm not trying to be the boogeyman saying don't get divorced. But I'm saying you should be aware. You should have conversations with your kids. You should create safe spaces because you're the only sane parent they have. You know, the fuckwit is checked out.

Tracy Schorn (17:09): You know? It's hard stuff to navigate. It's really hard stuff. But I think we should comment on this. The sun said, How stupid do you think I am?

Unknown Speaker (17:18): Yeah, they think everyone's stupid, don't they?

Sarah Gorel (17:21): I don't know if they think that people are stupid. I think they just think that they're so magnificent and so central. People don't really exist properly within their little circle. Then we become unreasonable and bitter.

Unknown Speaker (17:32): Yeah. I guess we just all do their bidding until we don't. Until we don't. Or maybe we blow the whistle at their workplace and they get shit canned. That would be a happy ending, wouldn't it?

Unknown Speaker (17:41): There would be some accountability, some consequences, good times. Should we do one on workplace affairs? Should we see what people think?

Sarah Gorel (17:50): Yeah, let's do workplace affairs. Did your ex's affair start in the workplace? You can get in touch with us.

Unknown Speaker (17:56): Yeah, all right.

Unknown Speaker (18:04): Reach out to us. You can check us out at tellmehowyou'remighty.com or check out the blog at chumplady.i'm always open to your suggestions there.

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