Episodes

Cheaters say the darndest things. In this episode, Sarah and Tracy react to your Stupid Sh*t Cheaters Say submissions. The suggestion that you would like the affair partner if you only knew them. The sad sausage bleatings. The cruelty of your consequences. How could you?!

How pretty did you pick me dance to win a cheater? Did you lose weight? Up your sex game? Spend less time with the children? Were you aware you were in a life or death pick me spiral with Schmoopie, or did you sense it? In this episode, Sarah and Tracy react to your pick me dance stories shared on voicemail and social media. (We picked you!)

Rob Manuel is the creator of the social media phenomenon FessHole, where people anonymously share their darkest, most mortifying secrets. In this episode, Rob's curated his best cheater (and wannabe cheater) confessions. The dead bedroom cheaters. The woman who wants someone to come clean her house. The guy who wants his partner to cheat on him because he's too gutless to dump his girlfriend honestly. Sarah and Tracy weigh in. Need more secrets? Check out Fesshole The Podcast.

A self-professed cheater leaves Sarah and Tracy a voicemail asking how he can make amends for being unfaithful. He doesn't wish to reconcile -- they're going to divorce. But how can he rehabilitate his image going forward as co-parents. Tracy offers some thoughts on how to kick the entitlement habit and Sarah provides the sobering, yet friendly, cynicism that this advice probably will not be followed.

Sarah Manguso has written the ultimate chump novel: Liars. Jane is a woman who endures marriage to, and divorce from, a textbook fuckwit. It dramatizes marital betrayal, narcissistic abuse, and coercive control in a way we all know deep in our bones. Manguso says, "It’s a novel, so of course it’s all fiction—except for the parts that are true." During the pandemic, Manguso's cheating husband abandoned her and their son. It became fodder for Liars. She the author of nine books, most recently t...

Was there a moment in your relationship, before you knew about the cheating, in which you look back and regret not leaving then? In this episode, listeners answer that question. The casual cruelities. The weird absences. The disconnect from family life. And the double lives that are later revealed that make sense of it all.

Jake and Christine saw an announcement on the Chump Lady site for people who were impacted by the Ashely Madison hack scandal. The were both filmed for the Netflix documentary, but their stories of leaving cheaters and overcoming betrayal were not included. Jake's wife had multiple affairs on the site, and he found out when one of the affair partners contacted him. Christine discovered her boyfriend's double life and then catfished him on the dating site. These are their stories. The ones that d...

Following up from last week's episode, Sarah weighs in on her observations (and revulsions) on the Ashley Madison Neflix series. Is it possible this many serial cheaters exist? Does that guy in the pink flamingo shirt sunning himself by the poolside have any conscience? Is Noel Biderman's wife a chump or an accomplice? It's a deep vein of snark and commentary.

The new Netflix docuseries on the Ashley Madison hack purports to look at the complexities around infidelity. Instead, it's the same old message about reconciliaton and not judging cheaters for their sexuality. Deception -- as experienced by chumps, not Noel Biderman -- is left out of the discussion. Tracy Schorn, aka Chump Lady, riffs on the characters and missed opportunities to have a fuller conversation.

In this episode we discuss how cheaters devalue their partners while simulataneously love bombing their affair partners. Listeners share stories of what their cheaters did for Schmoopies, but not them or their children. From little gestures like cooking dinner or holding hands, to outrageous injustices like stiffing your kids thousands in back child support while paying for private school for the new family -- it's an exercise in trust that they suck.

A discounted chocolate Easter egg for a 13-year-old's birthday... weeks past Easter. American-flag themed polar fleece. The same gift the Other Woman got, only in the wrong size. In this episode Tracy and Sarah lampoon the Worst Cheater Gifts. Narcissists aren't known for their gift giving, as demonstrated by listeners' submissions of the most thoughtless and tasteless presents ever. The thought did not count.

Comedian Kat moved to the UK for love over 20 years ago. Then her husband left her for his old girlfriend -- who she thought was a family friend. The kids all go to school together. Now she's divorced and stuck in her adopted home country and can't leave because of the divorce and co-parenting arrangement. And she sees the Other Woman every time she does school pickups. How do you find the humor in that?

In this episode we talk with blogger/activist Tina Swithin of One Mom's Battle. Tina acted as her own attorney in a high-conflict custody battle that turned her family’s life upside down for over a decade. While divorces are never easy, Tina quickly learned that a divorce involving a narcissist takes the term, “high-conflict” to a level that few can comprehend.

Tracy and Sarah discuss the common, if depressing, problem of forgiveness and multiple D-Days. What does forgiveness mean? Is it essential to get over betrayal? Or can you move on quite fine without it? And how do you fend off forgiveness trolls -- the sorts who insist on forgiveness before you've even processed the offense?

What happens when cheater true love goes splat? In this episode, we feature your Schmoopie stories of comeuppance and karmic reckonings. Like the tree that fell on the BMW. A biblical flood. A clever dragnet and the mistress laws of Thailand. If you're moving on from infidelity, the goal is indifference toward your ex, but sometimes you want to shoot that sweet schadenfreude straight into your veins. This is that episode.

Sarah and Tracy react to an article chiding mothers to get along with former affair partners, now wives, for the sake of the children. It goes beyond coparenting, and encourages friendship and socializing with your ex. Much skepticism ensues. Especially from Sarah who has lived experience of this particular dilemma.

Ever wonder about the life of an infidelity advice columnist? This episode is an Ask Chump Lady Anything where Tracy Schorn takes your questions. How often do mistresses contact you? How soon do you tell someone you're dating you were once cheated on? Is too much chemistry a red flag?

Tracy and Sarah snark at the self-declared "Infidelity Professor" Albert Arnaiz, who wrote the book SHICRET: How to Be Unfaithful Without Getting Caught. What can a man who looks like a human dildo in a salmon sports coat tell us about cheating? We have so many questions.

Kathy Sherlock had a protection from abuse order against her daughter Kayden's father Jeff Manusco, who had a history of violence and mental instability. The judge allowed him unsupervised visitation. In October 2018, he murdered Kayden and hung himself. This case became the catalyst for Kayden's Law, which is pending in the Pennsylvania state legislature, to reform family law statutes where there are credible allegations of abuse. Sarah and Tracy talk with Kathy about how she fought to change t...

Tracy and Sarah take apart a recent People magazine "love" story entitled Cheating Saved Our Marriage! It's a common reconciliation trope that surviving infidelity makes marriages stronger. A claim Chump Lady likens to shooting off your kneecaps improving your tennis game. Enduring is one thing, improving is quite another.

Sarah and Tracy discuss the UK cheating scandal of footballer Kyle Walker and his -- oops! -- second child with his mistress Lauryn Goodman. Betrayed wife Annie Kilner, who is pregnant with their fourth child, took Walker back after the first oops child with Goodman. But a second? Hey, he has no idea how this has happened!

Welcome to a special Valentine's Day edition of Tell Me How You're Mighty! Sarah and Tracy discuss our worst Valentine's Days, smug coupledom, and a shared hatred of carnations. We read submissions from the Infidelity Valentine's poetry contest, where cheaters are immortalized in verse. (One submission is even a punk rock song.)

Worried someone might be cheating on you? Got a controlling partner and the feeling that you're under survelliance? Going through a messy divorce? You may want to consider hiring a private detective. In this episode Tracy and Sarah talk with Kenneth D'Angelo, a private investigator with 31 years experience. We discuss double lives, money trails, debugging, and how to catch a cheater.

It's hard to be cheated on. It's even harder when your faith community blames you for it or thinks divorce is a bigger sin than the cheating. In this episode, Sarah and Tracy talk with Rev. David Derksen, a prison chaplain, Yale Divinity school graduate, and creator of the DivorceMinister.com blog that helps victims of infidelity navigate spiritual abuse.