In the wake of Weinergate, CNN posted an article entitled, Stop calling Huma Abedin a victim. Abedin, of course, is Anthony Weiner’s wife, who I’m sure was, at the very least, embarrassed by the scandal, and perhaps angry enough to consider divorce.
The article quotes a couple of authors telling women to choose not to be victims. Instead, women should choose to define their own happiness. Oh, there are a couple of caveats—the advice doesn’t apply to women who fear for their safety or are facing financial ruin. But there is no discussion of what to do when your relationship is so emotinally abusive that you are psychologically traumatized.
In short, this story offers advice for women coping with infidelity whose partners are not sociopaths. Which is fine—these women need advice as much as anyone. But the article also reinforces society’s “just get over it” attitude, which makes life difficult for women dealing with true exploitation.
Read Stop calling Huma Abedin a victim on CNN.com.
Louise-they DO just move on and that’s what really got to me for SO long too. I also believed for awhile that my exspath could MAKE me feel a certain way. He and his wife just went on about their old lives like they were before. She wanted revenge so she made me unhirable at one of the hospitals where I used to work. That was one of the reasons that I had to quit the police academy and I was SO MAD. That job that I had there was SO perfect because my boss thought it was so cool that I wanted to be a cop. She was the only nurse who didn’t take it personally. She was going to let me take call on the weekends during the police academy and work regular shifts when I was done. The wife blackmailed me into resigning and then told the whole story to anyone who would listen and they wouldn’t hire me back.
You know what, I’m not mad anymore. I am so relieved that I don’t have to deal with that whole situation anymore. I was STUPID too because I didn’t KNOW he was lying either. He promised me that he wasn’t and I believed him. I finally so through it in the end and took hold of my moral compass back. When he tried to get me to lie to his wife so he could continue to have his cake and eat it too, I refused. I knew that it could mean the end of the relationship and I put my foot down. That was before she even told me that I was the 4th woman he cheated with. I told him all along that he should have been honest with her. She told me that after the last affair, she told him that she would release him from the marriage and divorce him without a fight if he ever came to her and told her that he loved someone else. He could have done that when he was lovebombing me and telling me I was
“the love of his life”. It would have been simple.
Now that I think about it though, even if he had done that-before we started sleeping together. I still wouldn’t have known that he had stepped out before me. What would stop him from later doing the same thing to me? I don’t think that cheating man like him can ever change. I know that if she EVER lets him off the choke chain she has him on, that he will turn around and do it again.
Oxy:
I love it…thank you!!! That is sooo true. Man, I wish I could go back to that day she asked me if I was mad at her so I could say that!! You are right…they are not expecting that type of answer because of course, what did I say? No, I’m not mad; just really busy and drowning in work (which the drowning in work part was true), but I really was mad at her and was avoiding her because I was suspecting that she wasn’t being truthful with me. I just should have told her, but that whole situation was so messed up, that is what happens. I think we never say what we are truly feeling because everyone has their own agenda and there is so much crap going on. BUT…that is the answer I will give in the future if I EVER find myself in that type of situation again. And you are so right…they are not expecting that…they are of course EXPECTING that the other person will just say oh no, of course I’m not mad at you!!! Haha.
Lizzy:
Yep, they sure do just move on and I am glad you got past it. But I have not yet and I just hope and pray it doesn’t take me forever. I want peace. I don’t want this rumination about what they did to me, but at this point, I just can’t help it. I want it to go away.
I’m so sorry that man hurt you like that and yes, he most definitely will cheat again as soon as he gets a chance…there is NO doubt about that. And he probably already is. Because you don’t have any contact with him, you don’t know what he is doing, but I can almost guarantee you that if he has found a willing partner, he is probably out there again.
To EB, the rock of gibraltar!
VERY glad to see Jr’s response – both in words and the ability to walk away. that’s great.
(got a call from my own n ex on Thursday. my response, was dead silence, then, ‘sorry, no can do’ and i hung up.)
your spath is like housework – you have to keep sweeping up, because it needs to be done. I so hope that someday the f***** dies and then you will be done. (any chance you can train that bear that likes you so much?) you have my utmost respect and I am sending huge hugs, and virtual tequila.
Lizzy,
So many times I see you make the comment about your spath’s wife having him on a short leash, choke chain etc. I thought that I might share an insight with you. SOmetimes I wonder if the way you write the words that you are putting her down for it. There is likely a further truth.
Sometimes the spath WANTS that choke chain. They get two bangs for the buck, people to feel sorry for them and help them “get back at the b*” and they have the b* wife who keeps them from getting too far out in their impulses that they undermine themselves.
My husband WANTED me to stop him, even blamed me for not keeping close enough tabs on him so that “it got out of control”. His mom is that way with his dad. BUT as the child of an overbearing overcontrolling abusive mother, there was NO WAY I would ever do that, it was ingrained in me that I CHOSE to be “NOT LIKE HER”. So my husband did things precisely b/c I did NOT keep tabs on him or know where he was most of the time – EVEN THOUGH HE ACTUALLY wished for that dynamic.
Believe me, if your spath did NOT want the choke chain – b/c he is an spath – he could easily get free. It’s self imposed imprisonment dear, a manipulation. Spath behavior never changes.
Katy-I think you misunderstood what I was saying all along. I am not putting her down at all. I think he needs to be on a choke chain. If she is going to take him back, then she damn well better not let him have ONE single moment of freedom where he is unsupervised-either by her or by coworkers. I just know what I have been told, and that she is watching his every move. I don’t think he likes it either, because everytime I have seen him, when he doesn’t see me, he looks like he is in a rage. I know how he got if he felt like I was putting too much pressure on him-he would get angry. Anger is the only real emotion he knows.
All I’m saying is that if I were in her shoes and taking him back, I would be on his ass CONSTANTLY. I wish all of ya’ll would realize that I don’t have ANY anger towards this lady anymore. It’s taken me a LONG ASS time to get to that point. I feel sorry for her. It’s sad that a woman would disrespect herself like that. Is she bringing it on her self? Yes. That is her choice to make. I certainly wouldn’t be caught DEAD making that choice for me.
Katy and Lizzy, I think I understand both of your points of view, and actually I agree with you both! Katy, I agree if he really didn’t want to be with his wife and her “choke chain” he would leave. He may say he hates it but we know that what they SAY and what they DO are not the same and what they DO is more indicative of what they really think than what they say.
I also understand Lizzy, that you would feel sorry for any woman who would demean herself by keeping him around, but if she didn’t want to be in the situation she is in she would kick his butt to the curb, so they are both in the MISERABLE RELATIONSHIT because for whatever reason is is their choice to be there. I think it is dysfunctional and sick for both of them, but they make their choices and they take the consequences.
I know lots of individuals who choose to make pith poor decisions and they get the consequences….I’m just glad that I AM NOT IN THAT SITUATION ANY MORE. I made a conscious choice to GET OUT of the relationshits with the psychopaths….and I AM SO GLAD I DID. GLAD I AM FREE. P-FREE. And so are you two. So light a sparkler and wave it around for FREEDOM!!!!!!
I will put my two cents in and say both of these scenarios sound like my X spath actually. His wife definitely is keeping tabs on him and in one way like Skylar said, I think he likes it, but on the other hand, I think it frustrates him as Lizzy said when she saw her X spath he looked angry; frustrated. That’s just what I know of that one I was involved with…he is torn and feels both ways I am sure of it.
Oxy-I appreciate what you said and you are right about both of them making that decision. I talk to people like Louise and try to be encouraging to them when they are fresh in the situation-particularly since I am so far removed from mine. So I may say things about my spath and what he did and sometimes I do mention his wife as well. I only do because they have this sick little relationship and they play off of each other. Just because I bring her up doesn’t mean I’m putting her down. I know she wants to keep up appearances and so does he. That’s why they are still together. Do I think it’s twisted? Absolutely. Do I understand it? No, I don’t.
All I’m saying is that my spath isn’t like EB’s who won’t go away. He’s gone from me and he and his wife can have what ever kind of life they want together. I just can’t sit around and think about him all the time, and think about the relationship all the time. I NEVER thought, when I came on LF that I would ever be able to go a day w/o constantly thinking about the whole thing. Praise GOD I am finally at that point. I don’t sit around thinking about spaths all the time. I have WAY more important things to worry about right now-like will I have meals next week, or enough gas to put in my car. Will my landlord kick me out, will I end up living in my truck.
I have just always kinda felt that a lot of people on here don’t really think that OW should be on here because we are the trouble anyway. I didn’t want to be in that relationship when I was in it but my pathetic low self esteem wouldn’t allow me to end it until I had ENOUGH of it. I still have very low self esteem, but will it ever allow me to get in that situation again/ HELL TO THE NO!!!
Lizzy,
As the wife, I think OW should be on here. It’s love FRAUD, not me the wife or her the OW. Your opinion is as VALID as mine. Your heartbreak is as VALID as mine. Your healing is as NEEDED as mine.
I did think, obviously erroneously, that you possibly misunderstood his whining about a short leash b/c I thought that was one of his hooks for you, why he needed you to rescue him. I do find that a lot, the spaths that cheat always whine like they are victims of a B* who keeps them on a short leash. Mine sure did. But I was not a B*. Like many wives, I trusted and believed my husband and did not want any part of a relationship that I couldn’t trust and believe. In spite of who I am, my spath husband played the victim and I was condemned for having him on a short leash, that if I didn’t, he would have loved me. What carp. He had a non-existent leash and he still didn’t love me. But he did blame me for not keeping him on a leash!
As a wise man once said, there is no wall high enough to keep in a man who is determined to cheat.
Lizzy, none of us are perfect but ALL of us who aren’t spaths need this place.