I was a newlywed when I woke up in bed with another woman’s thong stuck to me. Red, polyester lace, from Victoria’s Secret. Size large. When you are having a surreal out-of-body experience, the details remain vivid.
My husband was asleep and I don’t know what I was expecting when I roused Bob to ask how this item of underwear had found its way into our bed. That he would shout denials? Sob apologies?
I certainly didn’t expect to get a preposterous lie about ‘static cling’.
We were sleeping in a holiday cabin that Bob had owned before he met me. He’d changed the sheets, he said, and his ex-wife’s underwear must have been in an old drawer with the bedding and stuck to the bottom sheet.
While I was emotional about my discovery, his delivery was calm, almost bemused. It was very persuasive. If this was a crisis, wouldn’t he be hysterical too? He wasn’t emotional, ergo it wasn’t a crisis.
The scenario he described was not outside the laws of physics. It was possible. But my churning gut said it wasn’t probable. Then he held my face in his hands, looked straight into my eyes, and said: ‘Tracy, you know how much I love you. You know I would never do anything to jeopardise this relationship.’ He swore he wasn’t cheating on me.
Of course he was cheating on me. But that day I could not accept that my life had become a Kafkaesque short story and my husband was a stranger.
I was still in love with the illusion of who he pretended to be – a man who’d promised he would never hurt me. Would a super-villain call his mother every week? Do sociopaths wear soft flannel shirts?
I was also deeply invested in my husband being a Good Man. Or, put another way, I was deeply vulnerable.
I was a 38-year-old single mum when we met on Match.com – so this was my second marriage and failure was not an option. I’d also just given up my job as an editor to move to another part of the country for his career, and we’d bought a house together, with my money paying the deposit. Worse, starting this new life together impacted my eight-year-old son, of whom I had primary custody.
Tracy Schorn met her second husband, Bob, on Match.com and trusted that he was a good man. But after learning he was cheating on her, she says he felt like a stranger
Given such high stakes, what kind of monster would fake a commitment?
I started snooping to find out. But the Other Woman found me first and I got a phone call a few weeks later.
‘I bet you wonder where your husband is,’ a voice hissed. ‘He’s with me.’
Later that day, Bob drove home from work and confessed that in fact, yes, he’d had a fling with an old girlfriend. Needless to say this wasn’t the whole story.
I later discovered that the woman on the phone – let’s call her Cheryl – had also been an extra in one of his previous relationships. The irony is that when we were dating, Bob told me his exes had cheated on him. I had felt so sorry for him!
I never could get a straight answer out of Bob about Cheryl. But the night he realised I’d learned about her recurring role in his relationships, he flew into a rage and screamed in my face: ‘If you tell anyone I cheated, I will hunt you down and burn your house to the ground.’
By coincidence we had marriage counselling scheduled the next morning. Because that’s what’s expected of a wife when her husband cheats – she books therapy appointments for both of you.
Even though I’d just been issued a death threat, we went to the therapist, a bearded man in a knitted tank top. I told him everything about the burning house threat. He sat in a pose of non-judgment and said nothing.
I added that I wanted Bob to get an STI test, given that I understandably wanted to protect myself. He roused himself to ask Bob: ‘How does that make you feel?’
‘Like I’m being punished,’ said Bob.
As we stood up to leave the session, Dr Tank Top sagely pronounced that we both needed to ‘learn how to dialogue’.
That was the genesis of Chump Lady – my alter ego and name of the online community set up for others like me. I knew I was going to survive infidelity somehow, but crappy advice like this had to die.
In 2012, Tracy started an online community called Chump Lady, giving advice to others with cheating partners – the kind of resource she wish existed at the time of her own ordeal
I use the word ‘chump’ deliberately, because it more accurately reflects the experience than the soppy term ‘betrayed spouse’. A chump is a trusting soul who’s been played for a fool, but there are no chumps without con artists. It wasn’t my fault that Bob had cheated on me – he deceived me. And I rejected the notion that it was my job to fix him.
I eventually left Bob. From marriage, to thong, to attempted reconciliation, to divorce was about 18 months in total. Failure, as it turns out, was an option and I availed myself of it.
Before I conceded defeat, however, I read every infidelity self-help book and online forum I could find. But in 2007 all the resources assumed reconciliation. Worse, the experts asked me what I had done to make him cheat and how was I going to improve myself to win him back?
More incredible still, some promoted the idea that this crisis could make my marriage stronger. As Chump Lady, I liken this claim to ‘shooting off your knee caps improves your tennis game’.
The internet chat boards I saw were full of sad, twitchy people lamenting the lack of trust in their marriages. Reconciliation seemed overhyped, oversold and exceedingly rare. There was no one saying: ‘Leave the jerk. You’ll feel a lot better for it.’
And no one was pointing out an obvious, sad truth: you cannot cajole anyone out of affairs by being a better partner. And a serial cheater will not undergo a character transplant.
Nothing I read spoke to my experience – that leaving a cheater was the sanest, healthiest thing I ever did. Where were the stories of people who left and found happier lives? There seemed a gaping hole in the resources. Rebuilding my life was painful, but every day solo was a million times better than being devalued by an abuser and his phantom mistresses.
After a while it didn’t matter if he was sorry now, or doing his therapy homework, the relationship wasn’t acceptable to me. If I’m going to stake my future on someone’s potential to change, I’d rather put that faith in myself. I long ago stopped caring about my ex, but I continue to care very much about victim-blaming infidelity advice. So, in 2012 I created the kind of resource I wished existed.
Chump Lady is the snarky, straight-shooting friend who decodes bullshit and assures you there’s a better life on the other side of betrayal. I built the site to offer peer support and mordant humour, but most of all practical advice from people who’ve lived it.
Tracy admits she was terrified of leaving her cheating husband and going it alone with four young children, but hearing how other people managed to rebuild their lives gave her hope
Over the years, the community has grown to become an enormous repository of hundreds of thousands of shared stories. In 14 years there have been millions of readers across the world.
The best part of being Chump Lady is meeting people who tell me my writing helped them. One of those is my podcast co-host Sarah Gorrell, a single mum of four and a BBC radio presenter. She credits the Chump Nation community for giving her the courage to file for divorce 13 years ago when her husband kept swanning between her and his mistress. The day she discovered he’d enjoyed two Christmases on the down low was the final straw.
She was terrified about leaving and going it alone with four children aged between two and 11, but reading how other people managed to parent and rebuild their lives, helped her to make the leap.
We connected after she wrote to me, and three years ago we finally met in person and decided to start a podcast.
As she’s in Surrey in the South of England and I’m based in Pennsylvania, in the US, we’re proof of the universality of cheating. We started the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast to showcases stories from other people like us who have come back from the gut punch of betrayal.
Tracy’s book about finding power after being cheated on – Leave A Cheater, Gain A Life – is out now
We also want to reassure women that going it alone doesn’t have to negatively impact your children either. In Sarah’s case, her kids are now successful young adults. One of her sons was just accepted to medical school. I admire her immensely.
As for me, that thong led to a career I could never have imagined, as an author and journalist with a much happier personal life, which has included finding love again.
I met my husband Paul, a civil rights attorney, in 2009 while on holiday. I did have some trepidation, given my history, but I observed his character very carefully, and he hasn’t disappointed me. We have now been married for 15 years.
More than that, I know now that my heart was forged in a blast furnace and I can reinvent. It’s not about trusting the next man, it’s about trusting your own resilience. So, if you have the misfortune to wake up with errant undergarments in your bed, remember the pain is finite.
Rebuilding is hard, but chumpdom is not a permanent condition. And, however hard it is, it’s a million times easier than living with a b*****d who will destabilise you.
Here are my top Chump Lady tips for making it through after being cheated on…
TRUST THAT THEY’RE THE BAD GUY
Chumps spend a lot of energy trying to figure out their cheaters. What motivates them, why they did what they did, and what they’ll do next (bad therapy encourages this.)
Instead, just cut to the chase: trust that they suck. Anyone who truly loves you would not goad you into a humiliating competition with an affair partner(s). There’s nothing to envy or miss here. Move forward.
CUT OFF CONTACT
Going no contact is the fastest path to healing. The only way this person can manipulate you is if they have a portal into your life. Deny them that. The spell will break.
I realise if you have children it’s virtually impossible to stop all contact, so in this case limit it as much as possible.
LEARN THEIR TACTICS
Recognise the three-stage attack plan of the cheater: charm, rage and self-pity. When cheaters want control of the situation (and discovery makes them feel very out of control) they often flip through these three tactics.
Charm is lovebombing: ‘Hey don’t forget what we have together!’ Rage is anger and intimidation: ‘I’m going to sue you and take everything!’ Self-pity is this affair has been very hard on the cheater: ‘I’m grieving too.’
Sometimes cheaters will threaten suicide. Always take these threats seriously and call emergency services. If they need help they’ll get it and if they’re manipulating you, they’ll never try that again.
DON’T SUGARCOAT IT
Call a spade a spade. Language matters, so I always say cheater instead of ‘wayward spouse’. Wayward sounds like a dim-witted soul who got lost and wandered into a snowbank. Cheaters, however, are adults with agency who make choices.
ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS
Ask yourself if this relationship is acceptable to you. Not as you wish it could be, or once was, but as it is right now. Can you ever feel safe with this person again? Do you share the same values? You may choose divorce precisely because you [itals]do[itals] value commitment and you refuse to live a sham.
DON’T FORGET THE BASICS
When you first discover you’ve been cheated on, it’s natural to go into a state of shock where you forget about food, sleep or even hygiene.
Don’t. Make an effort to eat, even if you have to choke down a sandwich, and try and stick to your normal sleep routines. You need your wits about you and that’s impossible with insomnia or on an empty stomach. A shower and clean teeth always makes you feel better about yourself too.
IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT
Being cheated on is not your fault, nor is it a measure of your worth. Whatever our faults – real or imagined – we do not drive people to abuse us. It’s their decision.
Your partner had multiple options, beginning with difficult conversations, therapy or divorce lawyers. But instead, they chose to deceive you while enjoying the benefits of your continued investment.
IT’S NOT A ‘MARRIAGE PROBLEM’
Cheating isn’t a marriage problem, it’s a character problem. You don’t have the power to stop him wandering. Do not accept the idea that improving the marriage will improve a person’s character.
And couples therapy is not a magic pill. It doesn’t make dishonest people unvarnished truth tellers.
THE PAIN IS FINITE
People often ask me ‘When will the pain stop?’ and I always answer ’Tuesday’.
I don’t know which Tuesday, but I know your Tuesday is out there. How do I know? Because what’s the alternative – let this define you? Let yourself be dragged under? Become one of those brittle people fronting a fake life? Is this what you want?
Cheaters might take a lot, but don’t let them have your soul. Yes, there’s a lot to grieve, and it feels like it will take forever to get there, but you eventually you will, and it will be worth it.
- Bob and Cheryl’s names have been changed.
- Leave A Cheater, Gain A Life by Tracy Schorn (Hachette, £15.99) is out now.
- More details at chumplady.com and Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast ( tellmehowyouremighty.com )
