126. Her Cheater Gave Her HPV16: An Interview with Eileen Fox

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Unknown Speaker (1:36): Hey. Welcome to tell me how you're mighty, real talk about cheating. I'm Tracy Schorrn, the blogger known as Chump Lady, where I implore people to leave cheaters and gain lives.

Unknown Speaker (1:46): 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.

Eileen Fox (1:58): 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.

Eileen Fox (2:10): Today, we're talking about that thing that absolutely nobody talks about when they discuss infidelity, sexually transmitted diseases. When Esther Perel waxes on about affairs as exuberant acts of defiance or quests for aliveness, she tends to leave off chlamydia and cervical cancer. But it's obvious. When cheaters cheat, they risk your health. They make unilateral decisions about your welfare that can have terrible and even fatal consequences.

Eileen Fox (2:41): Our guest today is one of those unfortunate people whose husband had a wandering dick that left her with diseases. Sadly, this is not an uncommon experience. But what is uncommon is having the bravery to speak about it, Not only the sexually transmitted disease, but how she got it. As a woman in a one-sided monogamous marriage. Eileen Fox shared her story publicly at People Magazine about how she got HPV sixteen, which resulted in cervical, vulval and anal cancer.

Eileen Fox (3:13): She's a survivor of cancer and a cheating fuckwit and the absolute definition of mightiness. Welcome Eileen.

Eileen Fox (3:22): Oh, thank you, Tracy. It actually is very affirming to me when people are as outraged and as touched by my story as you are and as some others have been.

Eileen Fox (3:33): Oh, totally horrified. It's heinous. Yeah. So okay. Walk me through this.

Eileen Fox (3:40): So you were in, what, like a thirty year marriage. When did you have a D days? You thought you were safe in this marriage for a long time.

Eileen Fox (3:47): I thought I was safe in this marriage. So actually, I'm not quite divorced. We've been married for thirty eight years, although I have not seen him or heard his voice in three years. However, the D Day came in August 2017. The D Day came about in a very unusual way.

Eileen Fox (4:04): My ex husband had moved to another state for his job. I had stayed behind where we lived to finish out my work contract. When I moved to the new state, he informed me that he had received a DUI, which was shocking to me. Even though he did drink, that was shocking to me. And he told me that his license had been revoked.

Eileen Fox (4:28): And I was perplexed by this.

Unknown Speaker (4:30): You didn't know he drank? You didn't think he had a drinking problem?

Eileen Fox (4:33): Well, no, no, I knew he drank, but he wasn't an alcoholic. He wasn't a stumble down drunk. Nothing that he had never gotten a DUI before. He's in his 50s. Nothing had happened.

Eileen Fox (4:43): However, then he had to tell me that he was arrested for this DUI in a neighboring state on his way home from a nudist resort. And I was absolutely stunned. I was shocked. I was numb. And I can remember this is how chump like I was, Tracy.

Eileen Fox (5:01): I can remember Googling, is going to a nudist resort cheating? Because he had insisted that he did nothing.

Unknown Speaker (5:07): Of course he did. Of course he did, right?

Unknown Speaker (5:10): And this was a man that I had no inkling. I had never had not one bit of suspicion that he would cheat on me. Absolutely none.

Eileen Fox (5:20): No, I believe you. Right. He had a double life. Right.

Unknown Speaker (5:23): Right. He led a double life. And so when I heard this, I remember Googling that, and I think now, what an idiot. No, you're not

Eileen Fox (5:31): an idiot. You trusted him. Why why would you think he had a double life? Yeah.

Eileen Fox (5:36): I trusted him. Yeah. And then from that, we used to share computers and they'd be left out. And I said, I never saw any emails from a lawyer. He had hired a lawyer in this other state, hadn't gotten off, had his license revoked.

Eileen Fox (5:49): And I said, I never saw any emails. It never came up. Like, where are the emails? And he pretended he couldn't find them when I asked him. And then ten minutes later, he came in and showed me the emails, but it was obvious that they were imported from an email address I wasn't aware of.

Eileen Fox (6:04): Oh, God. So the next day I did some sleuthing, and I knew sort of the format of his passwords, and I opened up an email account in which he had many, many messages off of Craigslist, going to hotels. My husband's particular form of infidelity was with were mostly one night stands with men and at massage parlors. That was the beginning of the absolute shock.

Eileen Fox (6:31): Yeah. Wow. And here you are standing. And how quickly thereafter did you get tested? Because I'll say a bit about the experience I have with this and even my own experience of being a chump is that it's one of the hardest things about being chumped.

Eileen Fox (6:49): And a lot of people resist doing it. And when I'm answering letters or people in the community are responding, we're always like, go get tested, go get tested, go get tested. And believe it or not, it's not the presence of mind. It's not the first thing. The first thing is you're just in shock that you can't believe this person has a double life, let alone that they took such risks with your health.

Eileen Fox (7:10): I mean, it's a bargaining stage of grief, right? You think, okay, they cheated, but surely they used a condom or they they took some protection. You know, if it's the other way around, you think maybe they protect it for pregnancy. And then you're they live in a world of magical thinking. Right?

Eileen Fox (7:24): So the fact that you, the chump, have to go put your feet up in stirrups and go have this invasive exam after years of what you thought was presumed monogamy, it's really traumatic. It is traumatic. And a lot of people put it off or don't do it or don't wanna think about that aspect. And again, it's not in the public. We don't talk about it.

Eileen Fox (7:48): All the discourse is at the broken heart level. It's not at the what's in the petri dish level. You know, what do do to my internal organs with their wandering dick? So how quickly did you go to a doctor?

Eileen Fox (8:03): That is very interesting the way you're framing that. I went and he went immediately to a local health clinic for a panel of STD testings, all of which came back negative for both of us, for herpes, for gonorrhea, for HIV, all of those. This is sort of why I'm a passionate proponent now of more awareness about HPV. I did not think of HPV. I wasn't thinking of cancers, I was thinking of those other STDs.

Eileen Fox (8:33): So it was then about sixteen months later that I went for my gynecological gynecological exam and had my usual annual pap test, and that is what revealed. And I think for some reason in my head, there was a disconnect between STDs and HPV, which is extremely serious. So initially, within that week, we went to the health center. It was not until sixteen months later that I got tested for the HPV.

Eileen Fox (9:03): Wow. And your doctor didn't say, Hey, you might also want to do an HPV screening? Did you tell your doctor, my husband's been unfaithful? Was this like

Eileen Fox (9:12): So the health clinic did not ask me about it or offer it to me, and I didn't think about it. I was in a new city in a new state. I did not have an established doctor. Had I been in my previous home where we live for twenty two years, yes, I would have informed my doctor. But I was so traumatized that I was not thinking clearly too.

Eileen Fox (9:31): Well, you would think that a health professional who's dealing with STD testing would think cancer. That it shouldn't be your job to be so informed that you know all the terrible things that could befall you. And yet, you know, there's that self blame. Oh, I didn't know. I didn't ask the right question.

Eileen Fox (9:48): And so thank goodness you're out there raising awareness so that people will have this at the front of their mind should it happen to them.

Unknown Speaker (9:54): Yeah. That's my hope.

Eileen Fox (9:56): Yeah. So you're out there trying to get the message to get vaccinated and all the rest. Good for you.

Eileen Fox (10:02): Right. I think the vaccine is hugely important. I think it has been a game changer in terms of decreasing cancers from HPV. So that is now a passion

Eileen Fox (10:11): of mine. Yeah. So in in your case, so you got this bad Pap smear. And then what happened? I mean, did they pull you aside and say, hey, we gotta laser off the bad stuff?

Eileen Fox (10:22): Well, when I did get the results and that I had HPV sixteen, and then of course, Googled that and found out that it's the most oncogenic virus known to medicine. It can cause six different cancers, various forms of HPV. Mine happens to be especially serious. So when I learned that, then I went and was examined and was told I needed what's called a cold knife cone biopsy. And that revealed that I had cervical cancer.

Eileen Fox (10:52): I had vulvar cancer, a lesion removed, and I had a full radical hysterectomy a few months later. And hopefully that takes care of the cervical side of it. The vulvar cancer has been especially aggressive. So I am in treatment for that every ninety days I have my genitals chipped away.

Unknown Speaker (11:09): Oh God.

Eileen Fox (11:10): I don't have any labia anymore. So every day I have a physical reminder of the violence that he has perpetrated on my body. And then three years ago, I found out that I had anal dysplasia.

Unknown Speaker (11:21): The gift that keeps on giving. Wow.

Eileen Fox (11:23): I know. I hit the trifecta. But I also have the risk of head and neck cancers from this or vaginal. Wow. Let's hope that I don't get that.

Unknown Speaker (11:34): Does he have any cancer? I mean like, it just it would be No. Oh, so fair that he's the one who's out dipping his wick, and he doesn't have any cancer. Not that I know of.

Eileen Fox (11:44): It would be poetic justice. He would be liable to get penile, anal, and esophageal from his behaviors.

Eileen Fox (11:51): And you guys you have children together. Yeah? You've got kids?

Eileen Fox (11:54): We do. We have four beautiful children and they're well launched and they were all young adults at the time that this came to the forefront. My youngest was in college and the other three had graduated and were living their lives. And it has been a horrible assault on their mental health to find out that the father they thought they knew was living a double life that was disaster.

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Eileen Fox (12:48): And they're kind of having their own d days, but to to think that they could lose their mother over it. I mean, it's one thing to go through a divorce, to know the dad has a double life. You know, no kid wants to know those kind of particulars, hooker habits or whatever. But but the health risks to take on that amount of traumatic information and then also worry I could lose my mom.

Eileen Fox (13:13): Yeah, it's been very difficult for everyone. Two of my children were actually with me when I went to the doctor. I went to Dana Farber in Boston originally, that's my hometown. And two of my children were with me when I got the results of the cervical cancer. And that, I think, was the worst moment of my life, was seeing their faces when he told me that I had invasive cervical cancer.

Unknown Speaker (13:38): I'm so sorry.

Eileen Fox (13:39): I know. And meanwhile, my husband was back in his home country of Ireland to comfort his mother because I had told people what he had been doing.

Eileen Fox (13:48): Oh, so okay. Yeah, because I was open about it. So his number one concern was stopping that narrative from getting out there?

Eileen Fox (13:59): That is exactly it. And I find that's true. Since my story came out, was it originally published in the Tampa Bay Times, then people picked it up. But I have been contacted by so many women whose stories, like you here, are so similar to mine. And in almost every single one, the perpetrator wanted to control the narrative.

Unknown Speaker (14:21): Of course they did. Yeah, of course.

Eileen Fox (14:24): And if you saw Belle Burden's interview with Oprah recently, her husband did the same thing, wanted to control the narrative. Let's say it's amicable. Don't tell people about what I was doing. And I knew from the outset, I knew two things when I found this out. One, that I would not be quiet about it.

Eileen Fox (14:41): And two, that I was not to blame for any of his behaviors. Those were my two takeaways.

Eileen Fox (14:47): Amen. Where'd you get this really incredible, healthy sense of self? I was gonna ask, it's funny you should bring up Bell Burton because I did watch that interview, and and I'm in the process of writing something about it. But the thing that kind of struck me, she's very classy about it, and she's on Oprah. But I'm going to offer my chump lady pointer on this.

Eileen Fox (15:06): I think it's very interesting that she has to go to great pains, and Oprah does too, to go, But you're not bitter. You're not angry. You had anger, but you slid right past anger. And now you're right into the, Aren't you brave? Aren't you a good soldier?

Eileen Fox (15:19): And it's like the deserving chumps and the undeserving chumps. And if you're angry about what happened to you, then you're the undeserving person who doesn't deserve the microphone. And if you're righteously pissed, then your story is not as valid. And that really bothers me. It bothers me as somebody who got jumped.

Eileen Fox (15:39): It bothers me as somebody who cares about misogyny and justice that we can't talk about this. And we're not allowed to be have negative feelings about it.

Eileen Fox (15:48): You are preaching to the choir. I am absolutely stunned when people want to force positivity on me or forgiveness. I don't need to forgive him. I mean, spiritually, maybe down the line.

Unknown Speaker (16:03): Not your job, above your pay grade.

Eileen Fox (16:05): On my deathbed maybe, but that is exactly it. This whole false positivity and I also picked up on that in that interview because I do think the righteous anger is applicable. I think it's motivational. And I think women especially need it in order to get a fair settlement to forward their own interests. I think we need that.

Eileen Fox (16:30): And if you can't be mad at somebody who has done despicable things to you

Eileen Fox (16:35): Right. You're fighting for your life, quite literally, you know, because of what he did. And what you're, you know, allowed to have a a bad thought about it, you're supposed to just skip past that. It doesn't compute to me. So tell me about the decision to go to the Tampa Bay Times.

Eileen Fox (16:51): It sounds like you made a very conscious decision that I wanna raise awareness about this. And I really admire how you framed it too, because I think and not to say that people aren't gonna come at you, because they do. But to go like, oh, she's scorned. She's bitter. She wants to drag his name through the mud.

Eileen Fox (17:10): You're framing this as we need to raise awareness. We need to talk about this as women, what happens to us. And there is this life saving vaccine out there that people are not getting. I mean, to interview you, I went down the rabbit hole. I'm like, Oh, I'm too old for this vaccine.

Eileen Fox (17:27): Know, with this even, I had a serial cheating husband, that risk was, you know, back in the day. Should I get this? And yes, yes, you should. You may have HPV, but this vaccine will help you if you come in contact with the terrible kind. Who knew?

Eileen Fox (17:42): Who knew? I was actually vaccinated last summer. I'm in my early 60s. And my oncologist now here at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa gave me a prescription for it. And none of the pharmacies here in Florida would fill it.

Eileen Fox (17:56): I guess legally they can't.

Eileen Fox (17:58): Really? Stop, stop, stop. Why can't they fill your prescription for an HPV vaccine?

Eileen Fox (18:04): Insurance only covers it up until the age of 45 now. And after that, you're sort of on your own. I know that Medicare doesn't even require pap testing after 65, which I think is also ridiculous.

Eileen Fox (18:16): What kind of misogyny is this? Like women don't have sex over the age of 45?

Eileen Fox (18:21): Absolutely. That is my point exactly. Actually, health department here in Florida, had to pay out of pocket for it, which is about $900 It's about $300 per shot. Well worth it though. But I had to go to the health department here to get it, but they did give it to me.

Eileen Fox (18:38): And I think these artificial limits on age are ridiculous and dangerous.

Unknown Speaker (18:44): Absolutely. Are you talking to your Congress people? Everybody call your Congress people. I will be. This is insane.

Unknown Speaker (18:52): It's absolutely insane that you can't have health coverage for this. So did you just call a reporter? You're like, hey, I have a story I'd like to share with you. Like, how did this happen?

Eileen Fox (19:02): Yes. So I had been doing for the last few years, just on my own little tiny TikTok for my little circle of friends, I've been doing sort of public service announcements about HPV and what it causes and when to get it and sort of promoting the idea of vaccines. And then it was International HPV Awareness Day in March. I had been talking to Moffett where I have two oncologists and I said, well, I might as well see if the Tampa Bay Times will cover HPV. And they did.

Eileen Fox (19:31): And if you see that article, they had their photography crew in with me while I was getting three anal biopsies.

Unknown Speaker (19:39): Oh my God.

Eileen Fox (19:41): And so they were taking pictures of me in there. There's a blanket on me on one side and the photographer, and then behind me is the doctor taking the anal things. And I'm lying on the bed, and they didn't share the photos with me before they published it. I know. When I talked to the journalist, I said, how are the photos?

Unknown Speaker (20:01): And she goes, oh, Eileen, they're very impactful. I'm like, oh my god. That means I look shitty.

Eileen Fox (20:07): No. To anyone listening to this, not looking at a video, you're absolutely gorgeous. But who wants your butt like in the Tampa Bay Times? I was like, you know what? I will shed my privacy in order to light the path for others.

Eileen Fox (20:22): So have at it. Put me out there. Whatever it is, it is. You are so brave. I am so impressed with you.

Eileen Fox (20:30): But to talk about the jump experience, no way to compare with your incredible bravery here. But I think when you go through this kind of seismic shock in your life, when you discover your life was nothing like you thought it was, that the person that you made this deep investment in is a total and utter fraud, right? That this monogamy you thought you had was completely one-sided. When you suffer that kind of trauma, I think it can go either way with people. I think you can either curl up inside and put the barriers up and like, that's it, I'm done with humankind.

Eileen Fox (21:07): Or it can create this kind of bravery that you didn't even know exist. I mean, like, can just be like, fuck it. What else can you throw at me world? Like, I have been through the absolute worst. So, I mean, what's putting your butt in the Tampa Bay Times, right?

Eileen Fox (21:22): You know, what is it after what you've just been through? What could the world throw at you that is worse than what your soon to be ex husband has thrown at you? Exactly. I I think,

Eileen Fox (21:33): you put that very well too, and that it is traumatizing. I don't wanna downplay the many months, the initial few years where I could not think of anything else. Of course. And I was trying all sorts of things. I mean, I was devastated.

Eileen Fox (21:49): I am so glad that I have really good siblings and I have a really good cadre of very close friends who were my stalwart supporters. And that was helpful for me to be able to tell my story and to deal with everything I was going through. It is psychological trauma. Make no bones about it. As you know, with your experience, as any person who has been deceived knows.

Eileen Fox (22:17): It's not just trauma, it's abuse. I mean, that's what I argue, and I get a lot of shit for it. But I'm like, how could it be anything but abuse? And a lot of times, you know, I'm arguing it's psychological abuse, it's risking your health. In your case, it actually the health risk wound up with horrific, lethal consequences.

Eileen Fox (22:36): So again, how is this not abuse? Explain to me why it's not abuse, therapists. Because it is. It is absolutely abuse. You did not consent to having your health risk.

Eileen Fox (22:47): And to anybody who thinks you got it on a toilet seat or whatever, I mean, what are your oncologist telling you? Are they saying it has to be this guy? Like, where else did you get this?

Eileen Fox (22:58): Yes. So as I said, I've been married for thirty eight years now. At the time, it was just over thirty years when I found out. My oncologist in Boston at Dana Farber, who's a world renowned oncologist in this field, When she knew my history, I had been getting pap smears every year since the age of 21 without fail. I had had four pregnancies, all of mine had been immaculate.

Eileen Fox (23:21): When I got the HPV test in 2018, and I've been married since 1987 and had been obviously faithful, which he knows too, she estimated that I had gotten HPV in the last, I think at that time it was about three or four years. She said that was when I got it. So there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he is the source of my HPV, given my history and my health awareness. And when you talk about the violence, it would have been easier on my body if he had shot me. It would have been easier on my body if he had stabbed me.

Eileen Fox (23:58): This is a life altering, lifelong affliction that he imposed on me through his selfish decisions to be deceptive. He was a coward. He didn't come forward and say, You know what? I'd really like to have sex with men and prostitutes. What do you think?

Eileen Fox (24:17): No. I was kept in the dark and that changed the entire landscape. You know, he he knew the entirety of our marital situation.

Eileen Fox (24:27): Right. It's a power trip and you're useful. You're useful. You're there raising four kids. You're the front of normalcy.

Eileen Fox (24:35): You're useful. You're a wife appliance. That's what I call it.

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Unknown Speaker (25:08): Oh my gosh. That's brilliant. Yes. Yeah. You're useful.

Eileen Fox (25:11): And that's to the question of, you know, why do they cheat? Why do they cheat? Because, again, I I'm beating up on what I call the reconciliation industrial complex. But what they try to do is tell you that, well, you know, he had a failure to communicate. He just didn't tell you he was into massage parlors or whatever he was up to.

Eileen Fox (25:27): No, he wanted the uneven playing field. It is good to be king. Sexual entitlement, that's his high. That's what he's after. Rules for thee, but not for me.

Eileen Fox (25:38): I can act with impunity. You are monogamous. You have to devote all your resources and care and labor to me, but I do not have to reciprocate. That is winning if you're a sick motherfucker, in my opinion. And I lived it.

Eileen Fox (25:55): I read the stories of people who lived it. And I can only conclude that it is abusive and that it is a power trip. And he would have kept doing it had it not been, I guess, for DWI or something. He got tripped up in it. It's not like he came to you, it sounds like, one day and go, oh, I've been risking your health.

Unknown Speaker (26:13): Oops. No. There was

Eileen Fox (26:15): never in fact, any of the revelations that came after the DUI were because I had found something either on the computer or whatever and then quizzed him. He would never ever have told me this. And in fact, had it not been for him losing his license, I would never have known about the DUI. He set up a secret PO box for it. He paid the attorney separately.

Eileen Fox (26:39): I would never have found out about it. So thank goodness he got a DUI in which no one else was injured because that started the ball rolling.

Unknown Speaker (26:47): That's how you found out.

Eileen Fox (26:48): Right. You are exactly right about the power trip. It is an abusive situation. When people don't realize that infidelity is abuse, that is also mind boggling. My husband in particular, when we went to marriage therapy, he actually was saying, oh, it's a marital problem.

Eileen Fox (27:06): It's a marital problem. And I would retort every single time, it's a character problem. And it's your character problem. Amen. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (27:15): This was not a marital problem. Never.

Eileen Fox (27:18): So this is after D. A, you went to marriage counseling. Is that what he was trying to say? This is a marital problem?

Unknown Speaker (27:24): Yes.

Eileen Fox (27:25): So what what exactly did you fail to do? You you failed to be a thousand different orifices. What did you do to compel his dick to wander? Please tell me what he thought. I guess I didn't have my own dick.

Unknown Speaker (27:40): But you can't be many dicks.

Eileen Fox (27:42): There's a whole dick buffet. No, I really don't know. He never said what I didn't do so much as that he wanted to spread the blame.

Eileen Fox (27:52): Yeah, marital. Two people are in a marriage, dude. So how is this a marital problem? I mean, it's so all purposely vague, isn't it?

Eileen Fox (28:00): It's blame shifting. And I think so many people do the blame shifting. And I think as you say in your book, when they want to blame the victim, what didn't you do? Where were you lacking? Did you let yourself go?

Unknown Speaker (28:14): He did tell me that too.

Unknown Speaker (28:15): Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. He's the total package, isn't he? He told me

Unknown Speaker (28:21): that right after I had my hysterectomy. I let myself go.

Eileen Fox (28:23): Did your friends and family just drive this guy to Ireland with a pitchfork? Because I'm just thinking, like, here's the story and doesn't want to my head is going dark places, and I won't say it. But I mean, did

Eileen Fox (28:34): he run for his life? No. He proceeded to act as he had always acted. And of course, my family did sort of come after him with pitchforks. His family circled the wagons and wanted to protect him at all costs at my expense too.

Eileen Fox (28:52): Eileen, if you would only be quiet, if you would only shut up, we'd support you. If you kept this quiet and you didn't tell anybody because we told his parents, we went to Ireland to tell his parents and his siblings accused us of trying to put them in the grave. And I said, Nope, he led a secret life. He's not having one life in America where people know about it, namely my family and friends, and another life in Ireland where he's still the conquering hero. He's the educated man who went on to have success in The US.

Eileen Fox (29:22): That is not happening.

Eileen Fox (29:23): Can I just stop you here for a second? Their discomfort at knowing that their son or brother has a sex worker problem, we'll just put it there. That discomfort is more important than you not having genitals and having cancer. Like we're going to weigh the pain Olympics here. We're going to weigh like what's more painful, a bad thought, some discomfort, or your health and being maimed and scarred by this guy.

Eileen Fox (29:52): To me, that's like, who's more valuable here? It just shows the entitlement to me.

Eileen Fox (29:58): It does. And my mother in law's response, when we sat down with her and told her what he had been doing, and we sanitized it for her. Her first response was, you're not gonna go tell anybody, are you? That was her primary concern that this not get out. And I told her, no, that's not the playbook we're going by.

Eileen Fox (30:17): I said, we are going to be open about it. Because at that time, I was sort of under the impression that he could work on things, give up that part of his life, and could be the man that he had always presented himself to be, where he was an attentive father in certain ways, and he was a decent husband in certain ways. But that was his veneer.

Unknown Speaker (30:41): Yeah, right.

Eileen Fox (30:42): That was not the truth. That was not the authentic hole. I also remember our therapist telling us at one time that my husband had this bad part of him, but basically he was an okay guy.

Unknown Speaker (30:55): Guy. Wow. Okay. Holy shit. He's an okay guy.

Unknown Speaker (31:00): All right.

Unknown Speaker (31:00): Exactly. And I just replied and I said, he has no integrity. And he said, well, know, he's ethical. He's not going to steal money. And I said, no, no, no.

Unknown Speaker (31:09): He has no integrity.

Eileen Fox (31:10): He stole money from you. I wasn't even going to go there because it's so minor compared to giving you anal and vulval cancer. But he stole money from you. To have a double life is to divert assets to yourself. It sounds like he has a separate everything, a separate lawyer, a separate account, a separate Right.

Eileen Fox (31:28): A slush fund to pay sex workers. Exactly. That is dissipation of marital assets. How is that not stealing?

Eileen Fox (31:36): Well, these are some of the things that you address too when you're talking about therapists when they're trying to do the reconciliation aspect of it and who will hear the good parts, here are the bad parts. But I was like, when you have no integrity, that's a whole being situation when what you think and what you say and what you do are aligned. He didn't have any of that. So what he would say was far different from what he was doing. I'm faithful to you, Eileen.

Eileen Fox (32:02): I love you. We'll do this. We have a life together. All of that meant nothing to him because he had no core, no substance, no moral compass.

Eileen Fox (32:11): Yeah. No. I was married to one of those freaks too. I wonder if that therapist or anybody listening to this story, it would be like, my husband punches me in the face. And they'd be like, yeah, but he's got good qualities.

Eileen Fox (32:23): He's not stealing from your your pocketbook, but he punches me in the face. I mean, I think anybody who's been chumped, anybody who's been to a DJ, and not the calamitous one that you've had, but anybody who's felt that pain would much rather be punched in the face. Because being punched in the face is an open transaction. I know you're trying to harm me. You punched me in the face.

Eileen Fox (32:44): And everybody around would understand that you just punched me in the face. But to sneak around and to risk your health and to keep that power imbalance going for decades is so much more grievously harmful. And we don't talk about it, and we don't see it in those terms. We see it, as I said, Esther Perel says, you know, an exuberant act of defiance and a quest for aliveness. And we romanticize abuse, which is abuse.

Eileen Fox (33:09): It's abuse. It's abuse. It's abuse.

Unknown Speaker (33:11): Makes me sick that that would be the attitude towards this. That makes me sick.

Unknown Speaker (33:15): But it is. Isn't that what you're experiencing? Yes.

Unknown Speaker (33:19): It it's a kick in the gut. Yeah. I was kicked in the genitals,

Unknown Speaker (33:22): but yes, it's a kick

Eileen Fox (33:23): in the gut to hear that sort of, I don't know what you would call it, but false presentation of infidelity.

Eileen Fox (33:31): Yeah. But it's the narrative out there. It's how I became chump lady because I was so sickened by it. I was so, like, mad. I'm still mad at it, obviously.

Eileen Fox (33:38): I get really emotional talking about it. It's it's terrible to think that like a sibling would go, you're gonna put me in a grave. Like, you're literally being put in the grave.

Eileen Fox (33:47): He has shortened my life. I am going to die from one of the cancers he gave me. If that is not domestic violence, if that is not abuse, tell me what is. As I said, I would have recovered more quickly from a stab wound or a gunshot than what he has done to my body.

Eileen Fox (34:03): So tell me what's going on. So people are calling you, people are like, I've lived this. Like what's your next step? Are you going on a speaking tour? Are you gonna raise awareness or like agents blocking to you to write a book?

Eileen Fox (34:15): I'm like what's going on?

Eileen Fox (34:17): It has garnered so much more attention than I thought it would from that little nugget of an article, which was excellent in the Tampa Bay Times to being contacted now. The Farrah Fawcett Foundation reached out to me to be involved with them. A group in New York City, the HPV Cancers Alliance has asked me to work with them. And I think that I also, at some point, will write a book. I love that you wrote a book about yours.

Unknown Speaker (34:43): I know it's about ten years old now, your book.

Eileen Fox (34:45): Yeah. It's gonna be reissued in the fall. I didn't write about my experience. I mean, it's sprinkled in there, but pretty much it's like jump lady advice about what to do if this happens to you. You know, don't accept the blame and expect that they're gonna try to change the narrative and say stupid things and manipulate you.

Eileen Fox (35:01): Yeah. So I I think I will use this platform for however long it lasts to promote the awareness of the HPV vaccine and for getting screenings. And also, you know, I might just tag along on your coattails too, because I think this is abusive and it is domestic violence. And I am absolutely aware of that. And I am exhibit A.

Unknown Speaker (35:22): You are. You are a very strong example.

Unknown Speaker (35:25): And I commend your bravery. I really do. Prior to this, I was a pretty private person. If I am whipping off my pants for the photography crew at Tippany Times, there is nothing I won't share, you know? If you can share your butt, can share anything.

Eileen Fox (35:41): It was so funny because this was a few months ago, but I got involved with the Anal Cancer Foundation, not the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, another one. And they sent me a little gift package and one of them was a hat, like a ball cap that said anal cancer thriver on it. And I'm like, okay, that's where I draw the line.

Unknown Speaker (36:00): I am not wearing that in public. You have a boundary.

Unknown Speaker (36:05): I have a boundary and that is it.

Unknown Speaker (36:07): I do not wanna be walking the streets of Tampa and I mean, we'll go, you have a cancer forever. I thought you were gonna tell me they sent you like butt shaped chocolates or something like.

Unknown Speaker (36:17): No. That I'd

Unknown Speaker (36:18): eat. You need to get with our marketing people.

Unknown Speaker (36:21): I cannot believe somebody came up with this idea and you followed through.

Unknown Speaker (36:25): And they sent it out to you.

Unknown Speaker (36:26): They sent it out, and my brother, he wore it just to see reactions. I'm like, oh my god.

Unknown Speaker (36:31): Oh, dear. It's a perfect gift. Yeah well thank you so much Eileen. I am so impressed with you and I know we're going hear more from you. Keep singing your song, keep telling people.

Unknown Speaker (36:42): Thank you, I'm happy to come on again if you ever have any other situation that I can do. I would love to because this has been a joy. I was a little nervous about doing it, my first podcast.

Unknown Speaker (36:51): Really? I'm your first.

Eileen Fox (36:52): Aw. Okay. Yeah. You are my first podcast, and you have made it so great. And I think that we are simpatico with how we approach this issue.

Eileen Fox (37:02): One last thing, did you read that court case in New York? This is extremely fascinating. There was a court case that just came out late twenty twenty five, maybe December or early twenty twenty six, where a judge in Nassau County, New York awarded a woman 100% of marital assets because her husband had infected her with herpes and HPV. She got cervical cancer. And the judge, whose name is Edmund Dane, declared that it was domestic violence.

Eileen Fox (37:33): And he also said that it was a gross violation of marital behavior. And so he gave her 100% of the marital assets. But the bigger thing is that I think it changes the legal landscape in affixing domestic violence to this sort of situation.

Eileen Fox (37:49): Yeah. More of that, please. I hope it isn't overturned on appeal.

Eileen Fox (37:53): Yeah. I hope not either, but this is a step forward. We need more legal consequences for people who behave in this manner.

Unknown Speaker (38:00): Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Eileen Fox (38:02): Thank you. I really appreciate this. Love your platform, and I think you're doing great work. And I'm sorry, we're chumps, but you know what? We're getting beyond the chump.

Unknown Speaker (38:11): You're mighty. Mighty.

Unknown Speaker (38:14): I know. I like that too. Great. Reach out to us. You can check us out at tellmehowyou'remighty.com, or check out the blog at chumplady.com.

Eileen Fox (38:29): I'm always open to your suggestions there.

Unknown Speaker (38:42): Carol G. Get tickets now at livenation.com. Don't miss Carol G.

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