127. Did You Out Your Cheater?

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

Sarah Gorel (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.

Speaker 1 (1:09): This week, we're gonna talk about did you out your cheater? We say a lot on the blog, if it feels good, don't do it. And that's generally referring to revenge, like don't spray paint their name on a bridge span or slash their tires or something. Don't do obvious revengeful things. But some people see telling people that you've been cheated on as badmouthing versus it just being the truth.

Speaker 1 (1:35): So again, this really touched a nerve. We got a lot of responses. We're going to make two episodes out of it. But Sarah, I always ask you first, did you out your cheater? Did you tell the world, or were you kinda quiet about it?

Sarah Gorel (1:49): It's funny, isn't it? Because all the advice is, especially if you're going down that route of trying to get the relation back, is don't say anything that could further undermine your relationship. So that does seem to be a real emphasis on just staying quiet. And if you say anything, then you'll be portrayed as some sort of bitter person. But one thing I wish I'd done well, actually, I don't wish I'd done it, but at the time I kind of looked back and thought that would have been such a wonderful moment.

Sarah Gorel (2:15): Because what I discovered, my ex had been going on a lot of boys weekends away or he'd been working. And what I actually of course realized was of course he hadn't been doing any of those things. He had been gadding around with this other woman. And just after I discovered that there was an affair going on, it sort of struck me thinking, well, where was he going then this weekend? Clearly, was with her, but what were they doing?

Sarah Gorel (2:38): Well, what were they doing? They were going to her sister's wedding. And I just find that absolutely astonishing that someone in the midst of an affair could be contemplating going to watch somebody else exchange marriage vows. It just seems the ultimate in hypocritical behaviour, particularly since her family knew that she was having an affair with this married man. Father of four?

Sarah Gorel (2:59): They clearly believed in marriage because they were having this big wedding but they clearly didn't believe in marriage that much because they were quite happy to welcome their daughter's partner who she was having an affair with, who had four young children, into this. So I look back on it now and I think, oh, it would have been just so satisfying just to take the four children and not say anything, just stand at the back of the church and wait till he spotted us. But, of course, I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have ruined somebody else's wedding. I wouldn't have risked the fallout.

Sarah Gorel (3:30): I wouldn't have dragged my children into it. But can you imagine that if you're standing there?

Speaker 1 (3:34): So satisfying. It's part of shaming, but, you know, they're impervious to shame. And if they understood shame, they probably wouldn't make these life choices to be cheaters. But, you know, I was thinking as soon as I asked you, did you out a cheater? I thought, we're both doing that every week on this podcast because we talk about it.

Speaker 1 (3:51): That is our chump street cred. Like, we have been cheated on, and we will talk about it. So I guess we're not shutting up and being quiet. Ergo, we are bitter. I don't know.

Sarah Gorel (4:00): Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I have to say, I don't really think about my exes cheating very much at all. But I do remember that I'm not bitter because my life has gone to be great. I'm really not bitter and I'm actually pleased. I'm delighted that she removed himself from my life because I look back and I think actually that was not good for me.

Sarah Gorel (4:19): It might not have been good for him, but it wasn't a good relationship for me either. So I'm certainly not bitter, but I just find that there are common themes involved with cheaters, as you highlighted. And also some of their antics are quite comedy entertainment.

Unknown Speaker (4:31): Oh, it's a deep vein of pomposity. Yeah.

Sarah Gorel (4:35): It's not amusing when you're involved in it. It's really not amusing. I'll tell you what, though, is amusing when you're out of it, out the other end, and you look back on their antics, or when you watch how life unfolds when you're out the other end.

Unknown Speaker (4:46): Yeah. But we're many years out from it. I mean, I think this is for anybody going through it. My heart still goes out to anybody going through it. And so much of the advice is terrible.

Speaker 1 (4:55): Advice like, you know, don't tell anybody because you might wanna reconcile. Now I I will with the caveat as we go forward with these stories is my husband's the one who's a trial lawyer who says if it feels good, don't do it. And that's advice he gives in court. And of course, we're not lawyers. We can't give you legal advice.

Unknown Speaker (5:12): But that's essentially like if it feels emotionally satisfying to get revenge on someone or give them some sort of comeuppance, it's usually the kind of thing that can bite you in the ass, especially in family court. Like, I don't know how it is in The UK, but if you wouldn't do it in front of a judge, don't do it. You know? Because anything can be read.

Sarah Gorel (5:31): Also, it's kind of playing into the what you call the pygmy dance, creating a big drama, and it might well make them feel special and important. Yeah. The best thing you can do with hindsight, and this is with hindsight, I don't say, you know, when when you're going through it, it's difficult to feel like this, is to let them have each other. That's the best revenge you can ultimately get. You stand back a few years down the line, and you'll you'll see that.

Sarah Gorel (5:57): You might not see it when you're going through it, but don't fight for somebody who's prepared to do that to you.

Unknown Speaker (6:02): Right. Well, some of these are not fighting for the person. But, oh, is it the best revenge letting them have each other? Because we we have some revenge stories here coming up here. Should we should we have a listen to our first one?

Unknown Speaker (6:13): Okay. Let's have a listen to the first one.

Speaker 3 (6:16): I put signs up everywhere, and it made the news. It made social media. I had people at the time were telling me that I needed to run for president. Oh my gosh. It was probably one of my proudest moments of my life for standing up for myself and outing him.

Unknown Speaker (6:36): I don't know what this woman did. She's kinda short on the specifics, but, it made the news. So I'm trying to imagine what that is. It's like you see some of these things on social media sometimes, like standing on the side of a highway with a sign or putting all their stuff on Craigslist and selling it.

Sarah Gorel (6:52): I'm desperate to know what she did now. But I have seen stories like this that made the news. And I've had examples like where I was driving along quite a major road, and there was one of these bridges that crossed the motorway, and there was a big sign there about some particular individual and what he'd been up to. You admire that, haven't you?

Unknown Speaker (7:10): There was a guy who wrote to me who was a lawyer. I mean, I guess he should know better. Right? Or or maybe not. But I think the story was, always thought we should have him on the podcast.

Unknown Speaker (7:20): He got a billboard out, like on a highway and wrote something about the other man. And then there was a defamation law. Anyway, he won. He won. He did the bad thing.

Unknown Speaker (7:30): The thing that felt good, and he did it anyway, and he won. But don't try this at home, kids. So, yeah, I don't know what this woman did, but apparently she has zero regrets for having done it.

Sarah Gorel (7:42): No. And she clearly did it in a very clever way because there was a lot of admiration coming in in her direction.

Unknown Speaker (7:48): Yeah. We could do a lot better for presidents right now. So maybe she should consider a run for president.

Unknown Speaker (7:53): Yeah. I you get my vote. Let's take the second example. Okay.

Speaker 4 (7:57): I did out my cheater by posting on Facebook. He went on vacation with her to visit her family. She had a public Instagram profile in which she posted a picture of them on vacation together. I took a screenshot, posted it on my Facebook, outing him and what he had done for almost a year and tagged him in it. He did not have Facebook approvals turned on so it instantly went to his friends and family as well on his Facebook.

Speaker 4 (8:31): So knowing he was on vacation, it went unnoticed for a couple of hours until one of his friends alerted him that he had been tagged in my post. My friends took her Instagram profile and sent her messages at the time when he found out I had posted his business on my Facebook page. He untagged himself and then proceeded to message me asking me to take it down because it was hurting her feelings. Needless to say, I did not take it down for a couple of days so that everybody would know exactly what happened. It is now no longer on my Facebook page because I take to heart, if it feels good, don't do it.

Speaker 1 (9:13): This story kinda story comes up a lot, like, on social media where the cheater thinks they're so clever, and the the affair partner is posting pictures of their true love all over Instagram or whatever. The guy's so dumb. He doesn't know how tagging works. And out it goes to everybody. I mean, it is shame on you, sir.

Sarah Gorel (9:35): What I find entertaining is that being asked to take it down because it might be hurting her feelings, Lester.

Speaker 1 (9:40): Yes. Oh, she has a sads. The thing is if you know that you're having an affair and you're so bold as to put it on your social media, how much can your feelings really be hurt if people know what you're doing?

Unknown Speaker (9:56): You know? And what about the person whose partner you're having an affair with? They don't have any feelings, do they?

Unknown Speaker (10:02): They're collateral damage. They're a little spot of bother. They're nothing. Right? You're a chump.

Unknown Speaker (10:07): You don't have feelings. What are we talking about?

Sarah Gorel (10:09): This is again an insight into the audacity of the behavior. You're tagged into something where you've been up to no good. You've been caught out. And then once again, you deflect the behavior onto the person that exposed it by saying you're hurting her feelings. Yeah.

Sarah Gorel (10:22): Oh. You horrible, nasty, rude individual. How upsetting.

Unknown Speaker (10:27): Alright. We have another one. Speaking of audacity.

Speaker 5 (10:30): I did have to out my cheater, even though really he was doing the best outing himself, because the divorce was dragging on and on. It was just getting ridiculous. The back and forth. Every Friday, another diatribe message from his lawyer to my lawyer, and I'd have to spend two hours with my lawyer just responding to the nonsense. The other problem we had was his mother, the monster-in-law, was also involved heavily with the cheers lawyer.

Speaker 5 (11:05): So honestly, I just made copies of all the receipts, the airline tickets, the hotel bills that were all in his name and her name, the affair partner, and made copies, put them in an envelope, addressed them to mother, the lawyer, anybody else who would just possibly just stop the nonsense. And it worked. Within weeks, we finally had a settlement, and it was over, or so I thought. Unfortunately, Teeter had decided that he wasn't going to pay the court ordered bills, namely the mortgages that he was responsible for. And in the process of attempting to sell our home, marital home, as required by the divorce decree, we were also steamrolling into foreclosure at the same time.

Speaker 5 (12:01): And it was really I'm gonna say a bad word here, A cluster, you know what, because I couldn't figure out from day to day whether we were gonna be foreclosed or we were gonna actually sell this thing. It was going short sale because the cheater wasn't making the payments. This went on for over a year. So the mortgage lender, one of the popular ones who was on the news for inappropriate business practices, you can just pick one off the list. Ultimately, they kept contacting me because the children and I were still living at the house, which was required to be sold at the divorce settlement.

Speaker 5 (12:43): However, the mortgage lender was contacting me, contacting my job, showing up at the house, sending messages. And I have no communication with the cheater, and I could not make him pay his bills. So in a stroke of genius, I decided it was best to just put his cheater supervisor's contact information. And within days, the calls stopped. The cheater who held a government security clearance at the time realized that he was in violation and could lose his job.

Speaker 5 (13:19): And finally, we were able to go to closing and sell the house. And I really recommend that when people have to deal with these do disordered people, they just document everything they possibly can.

Speaker 1 (13:34): I love on this one that she kept all the receipts. He's essentially trying to make her and her child homeless, but she kept the receipts. So thank god she survived that.

Sarah Gorel (13:46): So, again, it's another example of, you know, you've done something terrible and dragging it out and trying to make things even worse. She shouldn't have been having to keep the receipt, should she?

Unknown Speaker (13:55): No. I mean, she says, you know, you should as a matter of adulting. But, yeah, I guess it's just never on your bingo card that the person who would cheat on you that's bad enough would not pay the mortgage. And, again, this is not the first time I've heard that story. Like, it's absolutely terrible.

Unknown Speaker (14:11): But I think in their weird narcissistic brains, they think you're the enemy. You know, you're not letting them get away with it. They can't have cake, so you must be punished. Ergo, we will not pay the mortgage.

Sarah Gorel (14:24): I think this is another insight into into a good bit of advice that I had. So I remember just after the affair was exposed, a much older friend of mine said, you need to go to a solicitor, and you need to get separation agreement drawn up and you need to get your assets protected financially. And I was saying, No. No, no, no, he'd never. And actually it was one of the best things I did.

Sarah Gorel (14:47): Because of course in the initial guilt moment, people are more prepared to be fair financially. The longer it goes down the line, the more they think, right, okay, well it's all out in the open. I'll have all the assets as well.

Unknown Speaker (14:59): Well, whether they feel fair or not, talk to a judge. In The States, you get temporary support orders. And that's a very good bit of advice your friend gave you. Get the financials right up front. When I got divorced the first time when I was a young mother and trying to get the guy out of the house, was a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (15:18): And he was financially abusive. He wasn't paying for anything. He wasn't paying for the mortgage. And the very first thing my lawyer did as soon as I retained a lawyer because in Virginia back then, it's it's still this way, you have to wait one year and a day of physical separation before you can even file. Okay?

Unknown Speaker (15:37): It's so horrific. But you can get a temporary support order, at least. Suddenly, he had to pay bills. Not because he felt it was fair. He felt it was very unfair.

Unknown Speaker (15:49): But suddenly, was compelled by a court order to fork over part of his paycheck. And he was furious. And it felt so good. I remember this really dangerous tree. And as soon as, you know, I had this support order, I was buying him out for the house, I paid someone to take the tree down.

Unknown Speaker (16:07): And he was incensed. He came he was furious. And I was like, hey, dude. My house. You know?

Unknown Speaker (16:14): And, now I got money because you have to pay support. So isn't that beautiful?

Sarah Gorel (16:18): Don't tend to like consequences.

Unknown Speaker (16:20): No. They don't like consequences.

Sarah Gorel (16:22): I think the next one highlights that you can tell people, but you won't necessarily always be believed. It depends who you tell.

Speaker 6 (16:29): When I first found out, I told my close circle of friends. Then it kinda progressed into if anybody asks me, I would just tell them. And I found it to be oddly cathartic. It went from being the devastating and crying and not being able to keep my composure. And then over the many months later, it became almost like, oh, well, look at him.

Speaker 6 (16:55): He's a piece of shit. Look at what he did. And I tell people and I would feel good to tell people. I did try to tell the affair partner's husband, and he just totally didn't believe me and thought I was making it up. He even asked his wife and my ex if they were having an affair.

Speaker 6 (17:15): And of course, they lied and said I was crazy and psycho and jealous and you know, it was all lies. So that kinda got me nowhere. I never told his family because why bother? They're not gonna believe me. They're gonna believe whatever line of b s he gives them.

Speaker 6 (17:31): So at this point, I just kinda laugh about it. I guess. Sometimes, depending on who I'm talking to, I don't get upset. I don't get mad. I don't really have a response anymore.

Unknown Speaker (17:43): Yeah. On this one, you know, a lot of times this issue comes up. Should you tell the other chump that's in this, the affair partners? And I always say, yeah, the golden rule. You would wanna know if it were you.

Unknown Speaker (17:53): But then and this is the part people don't remember. You must let go of the consequences. Like, this woman, she she told the husband of the other woman, and then he didn't believe her. The Shmoopies were lying to him. But you planted a seed.

Speaker 1 (18:06): You have to let go of the consequences. Let go of how it's received. You don't control if they reconcile, whatever. But you did your due diligence. You did the ethical thing.

Unknown Speaker (18:14): You let them know, and now you have to let it go. But I'm glad she spoke about it. Even if they you know, what are they gonna say? You're crazy? She knows they're having an affair.

Sarah Gorel (18:24): I think as well, once you start telling your close circle, it's kind of a path to acknowledging that the relationship is over because we all want to portray our partner as someone that you're proud to be with. And once you start sharing things that they've done that are unacceptable, it's kind of that step, isn't it, to saying there is no going back from this?

Speaker 1 (18:45): No. Right. You can't. Or you have your own set of consequences. Now you'll face the disapproval and disgrace of your friends knowing that you took this person back, which again is why the reconciliation people are like, don't tell.

Speaker 1 (18:59): Don't tell. It'll make it so much harder for everyone to accept them. And I always thought that was really terrible advice because let's say for the sake of argument, you have a remorseful cheater, you have a unicorn, you have this person who's going to do anything they can to make it up to you. Well, the first thing they should do is acknowledge that they have offended, that they cheated on you. And so if you're keeping their secret, that doesn't seem terribly sorry, right?

Unknown Speaker (19:25): Well, you can't say you did it. Like, why am I reconciling with you over something imaginary? It just makes no sense to me anyway.

Unknown Speaker (19:33): And there are more.

Unknown Speaker (19:34): Oh, yeah. There are.

Speaker 7 (19:36): I wouldn't say what I did was intentionally exposing anyone, but I did confront him at his place of employment where he was having his affair. He and the mistress faced repercussions because of that. I did reach out to friends and family, including his family. Of course, in the early days, I thought somebody will just his parents will be able to talk to him, and they'll shake some sense into him sort of a thing, which did not happen. This is just really who he was, and and time and space away from him has shown me that this is really who he always was.

Speaker 7 (20:05): But he, at one point during the process of the divorce, tried to write a letter to his attorney demanding that I cease speaking to friends and family about the divorce, which went nowhere, of course. He wanted me to keep his secret, keep his image up. He refused to tell even his closest friends who at a certain point reached out to me to say, what's going on? Are you two still together? Are you okay?

Speaker 7 (20:28): And I had to finally tell them, which felt very strange. It's the difference between outing someone and keeping a deep, dark secret for no benefit to myself at all. The only person who benefited from that was him and, of course, his mistress so that they could try to live out in the open now with, without any kind of tarnished reputation. So I think keeping that secret is detrimental really to everyone involved, but especially the person who's betrayed.

Unknown Speaker (20:54): We have another case of I just wanted you to keep my secret. And I kinda like that she went to his employer. I know it falls under the if it feels good, don't do it, but he was having his affair there.

Sarah Gorel (21:06): There's so much discussion, isn't there, about who you tell and why you tell. I mean, suppose one of the things about going to an employer, and I thought about this, is if there is maintenance to be paid for children and you anything that happens as a result of you going to that employer, you have to be very careful.

Speaker 1 (21:22): Yeah. Well, if they lose their job, what I've heard, and again, I can't give legal advice. I'm just saying this has worked for some other people in this situation, is you take that to your attorney. Leave this to a legal professional. If you have knowledge of a workplace affair, my understanding is that your attorney could depose the workplace, the affair partner, the email system, whatever it is, to prove that there is a workplace affair.

Speaker 1 (21:50): And now that is leverage for a settlement. I'm sure your cheater does not want his or her workplace to be deposed because they could lose her job. So now you're kind of in a game of chicken. But that's the dangerous game your lawyer plays. If you just go in there guns blazing as an indignant chump and go, my husband's been having an affair with this floozy, you've just lost whatever power you had in that situation.

Unknown Speaker (22:15): And you've confronted them, and you look like the loon and the rest of it. I hope it worked out for this person. And, of course, he wants to keep the secret. Of course, the affair partner wants to keep the secret that benefits them.

Sarah Gorel (22:26): And the joy is, Tracy, there are so many of these. We've got episode two on the way very shortly.

Unknown Speaker (22:31): Oh, yeah. They get more outrageous. You you thought those were bad. There's more. So we'll catch you next week.

Unknown Speaker (22:43): Reach out to us. You can check us out at tellmehowyou'remighty.com, or check out the blog at chumplady.com. I'm always open to your suggestions there.

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